


A Royal Mistake

by reyofdarkness (mitslits)



Series: A Prince Among Men [1]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cunnilingus, Edging, F/M, Fingering, Mechanic!Rey, Missionary Position, actual prince au, ben has a sex tape, blowjob, idk how to tag sex things i'm sorry, mentions of child abuse, shower shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-11 12:49:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 39,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15315858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mitslits/pseuds/reyofdarkness
Summary: Ben Solo (aka The Playboy Prince): Prince of Alderaan and tabloid sensation, never seen with the same girl twice.Rey: Mechanic, blissfully unaware of Ben Solo's very existence.Until Paige recruits her for a night servicing the Met Gala, host to a diverse class of guests, including royalty. It is there that a chance encounter gets Rey caught up in a pair of pretty eyes and a charming personality that she knows she should stay far, far away from. The universe, however, seems to have other plans.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> okay so basically i saw Ocean's 8 and i wanted rey in one of those gala helper uniforms. this spiraled so far beyond that, i don't even know what to say 
> 
> many thanks to sarkany and trish for beta'ing (and listening to me go on and on about this for much longer than i was expecting to; they are saints)
> 
> more tags will be added as updated

Black tie, black jacket, black pants, black shoes, and a splash of white shirt at her throat. It’s an outfit meant to blend in, and Rey is thankful for that as she slips into the Met’s atrium a few minutes late. Her fellow waitstaff are mostly seated, listening to the director’s spiel. It’s the same one he gives every time, according to Paige; Rey has heard her quote it so often, she could recite it right along with him. 

The room, built for hundreds, is empty of all but a few dozen servers, busboys, and event coordinators, most of them clustered in front of the temporary stage. Director Ackbar drones on. “No informal conversations with the guests. You are not here for the party; you are here to serve. The attendees will be expecting only the highest quality service, as will I…” 

A half-raised hand pulls Rey’s gaze in the direction of a stout, dark-haired girl. She gestures emphatically to the empty seat beside her. 

Rey slips into it with a grateful sigh. “Thanks for saving me a spot,” she whispers. She fixes her eyes on the director, not that she’s paying any more attention than she had been a second ago. 

“You have grease under your fingernails,” is Rose’s response.   

Rey glances down at her hands, neatly folded in her lap, and realizes with dismay that Rose is right. The creases of her fingernails look faintly bruised, as if she’d gotten them caught in a doorframe. She groans quietly. “ _ You _ try getting this stuff off. I was in the bathroom for ten minutes scrubbing at it.” 

“Shh!” Paige hisses at them, leaning slightly around Rose to include Rey in her glare. 

Instantly, Rey falls silent. She curls her fingers into her palm slightly, just enough to hide the stubborn motor oil. 

Rose rolls her eyes but settles back into her own seat, and Rey has to hide a smile. 

Had it been anyone else, her reaction would be similar, but Paige had put in a good word for her with the recruiter. This is not a job to take lightly. Paige pulls in some serious money, and Rey isn’t about to waste an opportunity to do the same. 

She’s the picture of obedience through the rest of the lecture, straight-backed and attentive. It’s hard to keep from giggling when the director reaches the impassioned end of his speech. Paige has recited it for her and Rose countless times, adopting a rapturous expression, hands clasped in front of her, face upturned as if addressing God himself. The only thing forcing Rey to swallow her mirth is the feeling of Paige’s simmering wrath radiating from two seats over. 

“Remember, we are the backbone of the Met! Without us, things simply could not go on. So smile. Be polite. Wear your manners like armor.” Director Ackbar presses a hand to his heart as he stares down at the host of waitstaff before him. “Let’s make this a night they’ll never forget!” 

There’s some scattered, slightly confused applause as the director steps down from the stage and the workers begin to disperse. 

“All this time, I thought you were kidding,” Rose says as she, Paige, and Rey head for the kitchens. “But no, he really is just like that. Amazing.” 

Rey bites her lip but it does nothing to hide her smirk. “He should do Shakespeare.” 

“Oh my God.” Rose grips Rey’s arm. “He should  _ totally  _ do Shakespeare.” 

Paige brushes past the two of them with a long-suffering sigh. “I am regretting all of my life choices right now,” she mutters. 

Exchanging twin looks of amusement, Rose and Rey push their way through the swinging double-doors after her. Any lingering thoughts of a spotlit Ackbar spouting soliloquies vanish in the face of the hustle and bustle that greets them. Chefs yell over each other, using their spatulas and whisks to direct the flurry of food. Some of it goes onto plates, some into ovens, some into pots bubbling merrily away. 

Prep cooks hurry to put the finishing touches on the appetizers, busboys weaving in between to load them onto carts. Dishes clatter, metal rings; the frantic call of “guests have arrived!” rises above it all. The lines of trays filled with hors d'oeuvres and champagne flutes that sit on the sideboards are instantly swarmed. 

Rey and Rose stand right where they have been for the last minute, gawping at it at all. Rey’s fingertips feel slippery with grease. She and Rose are forced to move as the first of the black-coated waiters reaches the door. 

Paige sweeps past them a second later, a tray full of shimmering champagne balanced expertly on one arm. “You’re not getting paid to stand there staring,” she points out. “Grab a tray. Get moving.” With that, she half-turns, opens the door with her free shoulder, and disappears. 

“Rose,” Rey says as they stand amidst the rising tide of activity. 

“Yeah?” Rose asks, looking as overwhelmed as she feels. 

“Do you think maybe we’ve underestimated your sister’s job?” 

Rose sucks in a deep breath, lets it out through her mouth. “Definitely.” 

Rey stares at the trays waiting patiently to be picked up. “Great. Let’s do this.” 

-

Rey considers it a miracle that she even gets through the door without spilling anything. It nearly slams shut in her face a couple of times, but eventually she gets the angle right to squeeze through and keep it open at the same time. Who knew walking through a door could be so difficult? 

If she’d thought the kitchen had been heart-stopping, the sight of the gala floor is enough to send her into cardiac arrest. The theme? Abstraction: Confound the Senses.

Rey halts mid-step as she tries to take in the scene before her. Her senses are indeed thoroughly confounded. Pinks, greens, blues, reds, yellows in every shade paint the room, accentuated by patterned-tuxed dates hanging from their arms. Colors collide in a cacophony of confusion. Jewels glint even in the room’s muted atmosphere. Enough money sits on their fingers, wrists, and throats to buy Manhattan twice over. And Rey -- plain Rey in her plain uniform -- has grease under her goddamn fingernails.  _ No one is even going to notice,  _ she tells herself.  _ You’re going to be holding a tray all night.  _ With that thought, she steps into the kaleidoscope. 

Within minutes, she loses herself in the monotony of asking if anyone would like champagne, navigating through the forest of dresses and shined shoes, and making trips to and from the kitchen to refill her tray. Every now and then, she catches a glimpse of Paige or Rose and offers them a small wave. 

Paige waves back. Rose pulls ridiculous faces that would send Ackbar raving if he spotted her. 

The brief taste of high society is more than enough for Rey. Rich people, as it turns out, don’t have anything more interesting to say than poor people. They just have an overinflated sense of its importance. Eventually, it all just becomes background noise; Rey doesn’t let herself focus on anything but the dwindling number of glasses on her tray. 

When there’s only one left, she begins making her way back toward the kitchen. Before she can get there, an imperious-looking man steps in her path. Pale blue eyes stare down at her through pale ginger lashes. He could be handsome if he didn’t look so haughty, Rey thinks as she straightens her shoulders and prepares for his displeasure. 

“Excuse me,” he says coldly. “But what do you call  _ this? _ ” He thrusts his champagne flute at her, thumb jutting accusingly at a light pink smudge on the glass. 

Rey blinks at it for a second before hazarding a guess. “A lipstick smudge?” 

He snorts. “Yes. A lipstick smudge. Clearly, it isn’t mine, which does make me wonder about the sort of establishment you’re running here.” 

A small seed of panic begins to take root in Rey’s chest. They hadn’t been prepped on what to do with complaints. They’re supposed to be invisible, after all; if someone cared enough to pay them any attention, things had already gone wrong. “I’m sorry, sir,” she says quickly, offering up the remaining glass on her tray. “I’ll let someone know immediately, if you’d like to take this one instead.” 

Lip curling slightly, he eyes the new glass warily, his gaze lingering on the dark smudges around her fingernails. “So you expect to fix the problem by offering me an equally dirty glass? What sort of help are they hiring these days?” 

Rey’s mouth opens but no sound comes out. She’s too busy quelling the instinct to dump the glass over his head and ask if he prefers it that way, no glass required. 

Thankfully, someone comes to her rescue. A lanky man in a suit as black as his hair inserts himself into the conversation with a put-upon sigh. “For God’s sake, Armie, leave the poor girl alone. Does she look like a dishwasher to you?” 

Hux grits his teeth, his grip on the flute’s stem tightening. “My name is  _ Armitage, _ ” he hisses. “And no, clearly not, but she does have access to them, and she can tell them-” 

“That some rich asshole picked on her for a mistake they made?” the other man interrupts. His eyes meet Rey’s for a split second, one corner of his mouth lifting in a smirk. “Great idea. Now, why don’t you take the clean glass she offered you and fuck off?”  

Face as red as his hair, Hux swipes the clean glass, deposits his old one on the tray, and stalks off, muttering under his breath about “goddamn Ben Solo.” 

Rey allows herself to relax as he vanishes into the crowd. Then, she turns to the newcomer and has to swallow down a gasp. He sure is something to look at. Pale skin provides a shocking backdrop to his dark eyes and hair that spills in rumpled waves almost down to his shoulders. He stands nearly half a head taller than her, even slouched, and his lips are still pulled into a faint smirk. “Thanks,” Rey says when she finally manages to find her tongue. 

He stares at her for a second with studious curiosity before saying, “You’re new. What’s your name?” 

For a second, Rey is too taken aback to tell him. She’d expected him to turn around and walk off now that Hux had gone, just another posh guy in a tux with no real time for her. “Rey.” 

“Rey,” he says, sounding it out like he’s savoring it. “I have a question, Rey. Why don’t any of you wear name tags?” 

Something about the question, the collective “you,” reminds Rey where she is. She’s standing with a dirty glass of champagne and a host of guests that she needs to get back to. This is no time to be getting caught up in a pair of pretty eyes. Especially when those eyes belong to someone as untouchable as a Met Gala guest. “We’re not supposed to have informal conversations with the guests,” she says coolly. Her tone doesn’t match the heat under her collar. He really  _ is  _ quite attractive. 

He makes a slight sound of amusement, his smirk growing a touch wider. “What if a guest is having an informal conversation with you?” 

Rey takes a half-step backwards in the direction of the kitchen. “We politely remind them that we have work to do,” she says, horrified by how sugar-sweet her voice has become. It sounds unbelievably fake, even to her own ears; she can’t imagine what he must think of it.

But his smile stays in place even as his eyebrows twitch upwards. “Well, then,” he says, taking his own half-step back towards the crowd. “Consider me reminded.”   

Before he can slip away completely, Rey asks, “How did you know I was new?” She’d been hoping it wasn’t too obvious, the clumsy way she held her tray or tried to avoid eye contact with the guests. However she was slipping up, it would need to be rectified.  

“I haven’t seen you before,” he says. “I would have remembered if I had. I’m good with faces.” Then the crowd closes around him and his smirk, and Rey is left on her own. 

Face a bit hot, Rey ducks her head and hurries to the kitchen.  _ He would have remembered if he had.  _ She tells herself she isn’t going to read into that. She hands the dirty glass off to one of the clean-up crew who purses her lips and clucks at the industrial dishwasher. Rey spots Paige dropping off her own empty tray. “Hey,” she says, hurrying over. 

Paige’s eyes light a bit when she sees her. “Hey, how are things going? I’ve been meaning to ask you and Rose but-” She gestures to the chaos around them. 

“I’m surviving,” Rey says. “Barely.” She wraps her hand around Paige’s wrist and tugs her over towards the doors. “Come here real quick; I have a question.” 

Curiosity gets the better of Paige, and she follows after Rey. They huddle just inside the kitchen doors, peering out at the sea of guests through the porthole window. 

Rey’s eyes jump from one invitee to another until she finds the one she’s looking for. “Him,” she says, voice barely audible above the clangor. “Who  _ is  _ that?” She stares openly at him, her mind replaying their conversation over and over. Was he always that charming?

Paige follows the direction of her gaze and snorts. “You mean the human embodiment of tall, dark, and handsome? Someone you definitely want to stay away from.”

Rey’s mouth goes dry. “Why?” she asks. The man half-turns in her direction, and she instantly pulls away from the window, pressing up against the wall instead. The last thing she needs is to be caught spying. 

Paige shakes her head and goes to pick up her newly-filled tray. “That’s Prince Solo,” she says, “better known as the Playboy Prince. From what I’ve heard, he lives up to the nickname.” She leaves Rey still plastered against the wall as she pushes her way back into the throng, tray held high. 

_ Prince Solo?  _ **_Prince?_ ** Rey knows the Met Gala guests are all people of status, of course, but royalty seems like a little much. And what was with the “playboy” reputation? He’d been a bit flirtatious, maybe, but that hardly made him a player. Shaking her head to rid herself of such distracting thoughts, Rey seizes the next tray and rejoins the party. 

After what seems like hours, the guests are finally called into the massive hall where the charity auction will be taking place, and the waitstaff are allowed to rest. Rey, Rose, and Paige cram themselves into a small, relatively clear corner and lean against both the walls and each other. 

“You did not warn me how exhausting this would be,” Rose mumbles, face smooshed into her sister’s shoulder. 

Paige tucks some of Rose’s flyaways behind her ear. “If I had, you wouldn’t have wanted to apply,” she says, “and I would have been here by myself.” 

Rey watches the two of them with a soft smile and a twinge of envy. The Ticos are wonderful friends, but they’re connected by a stronger bond than that, one Rey will never get to experience. A string of ever-changing foster brothers and sisters couldn’t quite compare to the close-knit relationship Rose and Paige had. 

Rose’s distorted voice floats up again. “How long until we get to go home, again?” 

Paige meets Rey’s gaze with a flash of guilt. “We’re technically supposed to help with clean up after the event is over…” 

Groaning, Rose pushes away from Paige and moves to shove her face into Rey’s shoulder instead. “Paige is the worst, so you’re my sister now,” she says. 

Rey laughs and pats Rose sympathetically on the back. She thanks her lucky stars the gala was hosted on a Friday night, and she doesn’t have to go into the shop the next morning. She’s practically dead on her feet already, and they have hours to go before things wrap up. 

By the time the auction is over and they’re instructed to begin clearing the chairs away, Rey is feeling a little more rested. It doesn’t take as long as she thought it would to stack them up and get everything into storage, the late-night janitors coming in to pick up where they left off. Still, she and Rose are both yawning as they stand on the curb outside, and Rey is looking forward to falling into bed. Paige hails them a taxi, and all of three of them squeeze into the backseat. 

The top-floor apartment they share is a little cramped with three occupants, but they’ve made the space their own. Rose and Paige share the one actual bedroom, twin beds shoved together into a frankenstein double to make room for two dressers and a nightstand. The closet-sized bathroom is the only other room. Everything else is just open space, kitchen spilling into dining area into the general living space. Rey’s “room” is a small space she sectioned off with dark fabric. It’s unbelievably tiny and only private by the grace of Rose and Paige, but Rey loves it. Her bed is shoved up against the wall right underneath the window. Being so high up gives her a breathtaking view of the city, stretched in front of her for miles and miles until it meets the water. She’s spent countless mornings sitting in the middle of her mattress, a mug of tea warming her hands as she watches the sun spill over the skyline. 

Tonight, however, it is the moon that shines down on her as she collapses onto her bed, still in her work uniform. Too tired to bother with pajamas, she simply strips down and slides between the covers with a grateful sigh. She’s asleep nearly as soon as her head hits the pillow. Her last conscious memory is that of dark eyes glinting above a smirk. 

-

She’s awoken far too early by the clattering of breakfast dishes. With a quiet moan, Rey burrows further down into her pillows, but once she’s awake, she’s awake, thanks to the sunlight flooding their apartment. There are downsides to sleeping directly below a window. She sits up and rubs her eyes, calling indignantly through the curtain, “Which one of you woke me up?” 

“Both of us,” comes the reply, Rose’s and Paige’s voices overlapping. 

“Thanks for that,” Rey grumbles, too quietly for them to hear. She doesn’t even have to leave her bed to reach her dresser. Today, she decides, is going to be a day in. Changing quickly into a gray sweater dress and black leggings, she shoves past her curtains and wanders out to join her roommates. 

Rose and Paige are on opposite ends of the couch, plates full of eggs and bacon resting on their laps. 

“Morning,” Rose chirps. 

“There’s extra,” Paige says, pointing with her fork towards the stove. 

Just like that, they’re back in her good graces. Rey loads up her own plate and sits down at the table. She watches from the corner of her eye as Paige jostles Rose and tilts her head in Rey’s direction, mischief plain on her face. Rey’s stomach lurches uneasily; she knows what’s coming. 

“Guess who Rey was asking about last night?” 

Eyes wide, Rose’s head pivots between Rey and Paige. “Who?” she asks. 

“Prince Solo,” Paige says.

Spots of color bloom in Rey’s cheeks as Rose’s jaw drops open and deepen when she bursts into laughter. “What?” she snaps. “What is so embarrassing about this guy?”  

Rose presses her hands to her mouth, staring at Paige in horrified delight. “She doesn’t  _ know, _ ” she whisper-yells. 

“You’re right, I don’t,” Rey says, jutting her chin out stubbornly. And this is the downside to living with sisters; there are always going to be times she feels apart from them. “So if one of you would be kind enough to fill me in…” 

Paige sets her plate aside and settles on her knees, leaning over the back of the couch so she can look at Rey properly. “Remember how I said he was called the Playboy Prince?” 

Rey nods. 

“I didn’t come up with that, the tabloids did. Apparently, he’s never been seen with the same girl twice, and he’s been seen with  _ a lot  _ of girls.” Paige waggles her eyebrows. “Personally, I prefer Sleep-around Solo.”

Rey crinkles her nose and picks at her eggs. From the corner of her eye, she can see Rose frantically googling, no doubt looking up more about the randy royal. Well, whatever. She’s not going to think about him. She’s going to enjoy breakfast and then who knows? Weekends are hers. She can do anything she wants. She can-

Rose’s shriek yanks Rey violently from her thoughts. 

Paige is equally startled, if the way she nearly knocks her plate off the couch is any indication. “What is it?” she asks, sounding faintly alarmed. 

For a moment, Rose is speechless, eyes glued to her computer screen. “He has a sex tape,” she says reverently. 

Rey chokes and goes into a coughing fit. “Wh-who has a sex tape?” she asks when she can breathe again. 

“Who do you think?” Rose asks as Paige clambers over to shove her face in front of the computer screen. “Prince Solo.”

“We’re watching it, right?” Paige asks, and Rose nods emphatically. 

Rey shakes her head just as enthusiastically. “No. No way,” she says. If only she’d never asked Paige about him in the first place, then she could be enjoying her breakfast in peace. Instead, she is now cursed with the knowledge not only that his sex tape exists, but that Rose and Paige want to see it. Her earlier sense of unease returns, stronger than before. 

Rose gapes at her. “Why not?  _ You’re  _ the one who’s so interested in him. How can you resist?” 

“I am not ‘interested’ in him,” Rey snaps. “I just asked who he was because he talked to me a little. That doesn’t mean I need to see him sleeping with some random girl.”   

“Well,  _ I  _ do.” Rose and Paige huddle together as the video starts. 

Rey makes a big show of scraping back her chair and taking her dishes over to the sink. None of it is enough to drown out the sound of the frankly ridiculous dirty talk emanating from Rose’s laptop speakers. Her cheeks flame red as his voice, the same one that had lingered over her name, breaks apart into moans and gasps. “Headphones, maybe?” She whirls to glare at them, but neither of them are paying her any attention. 

Rose’s eyebrows are halfway to her hairline, and Paige looks similarly surprised. 

“What?” Rey asks, more than a little hesitant. Obscene sounds fill the space between them, and she sinks her teeth into her bottom lip. The worst part is that she really, really wants to go over and watch it with them. But she stays rooted to the spot, caught between her own desire and the creeping sensation of  _ wrong.  _ Wrong to look when he hadn’t given her permission, when he didn’t know she was watching. Wrong like she thought he was a commodity, no better than a paparazzo waiting for the perfect candid. 

Rose and Paige exchange glances before Rose whispers harshly, “He has a playboy  _ penis. _ Seriously, he’d fit right in in a porno. Oh my god.” 

Rey clamps her hands over her ears. “No. Nope. I did not need to hear that.” She shakes her head forcefully as if she can dislodge the memory through the movement. 

Paige stares at her steadily, says, completely deadpan, “It’s a big dick, Rey.” 

Without a word to either of them, Rey strides across the room, snatches her purse off the top of her dresser, and marches towards the door. 

“Where are you going?” Rose asks as Rey slips on her flats. 

“Church,” Rey says simply. “You two should think about it sometime.” She shuts the door to the sound of their laughter. 

-

_ What’s wrong with me?  _ Rey wonders as she wanders aimlessly down the sidewalk. She’s walked seven blocks, what should have been more than enough to get the image of “the Playboy Prince” smirking down at her out of her head. She doesn’t get hung up on guys; it’s just not how she rolls. And she isn’t even hung up on him. Rose and Paige have just gotten to her, that’s all. 

Rey keeps going, so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she doesn’t notice where her feet are taking her until she’s standing at the doors of the Met. She stares at the glass, blinking at her reflection. Maybe she’s more caught up on him than she realized, even if it is ridiculous to expect to find him there. He’d been there for the event, not the art. 

A chill wind bites at her legs, and she wishes she’d thought to put on more than her sweater dress and leggings before storming out. Winter has decided to linger this year, eating into early spring. She burrows into the turtleneck, but the wind keeps up, and she gives in, stepping into the museum’s warmth.  

The gallery spreads out before her, striking in its plainness after the grandiosity of the night before. Rey wanders through the sections without any destination in mind, wanting only to clear her mind. It gets easier with each exhibit. She’s always liked getting lost amidst the landscapes of places she’ll never see and portraits of people she’ll never know. Finds it strangely comforting.

The title of a particular painting catches her eye as she passes. It portrays a woman cradling her head in one hand, sprawled back in a chair with a faint look of despair. Two men hover around her, clearly concerned. ‘The Lovesick Maiden’ reads its titlecard and, snickering, Rey opens Snapchat. She captions it  _ you and paige @ me  _ before sending it off and tucking her phone back in her pocket.

Hours tick away as she continues on through sculptures, paintings, installations. It turns out to be just the thing she needs. She doesn’t think about Prince Solo for the rest of the afternoon.

When Rey steps outside again, darkness has just started to settle over the city, and the chill has grown sharper. She hurries to hail a taxi, hands shoved deep in her pockets, shoulders hunched against the cold. 

Rose and Paige both look up as she comes in. “How was church?” Paige asks. 

“Great. The service ran super long,” Rey teases back. She walks over to tug the blanket off the back of the couch and finds Paige carefully painting Rose’s toenails, the bottle of polish perched precariously on the cushions. “Don’t spill that.” 

Paige nods and bends a little closer to Rose’s toes. “Almost done, don’t worry.” A few more strokes and she seems satisfied, leaning back to admire her handiwork.  

Rose wiggles her now-bright-purple toes. “Come sit down, Rey, I want to do your fingernails. We got car-engine black just for you, so no one will notice any grease.” She waggles the bottle invitingly. 

Heart suddenly full, Rey leans over the back of the couch and drapes her arms around Rose’s neck in a loose hug. “You’re so nice to me sometimes.” She drops a kiss on her cheek and slides into the space Paige has just vacated. Keeping the blanket fastened around her shoulders with one hand, she holds the other out for Rose to polish. It’s a lost cause; the paint will chip off in a few days, but it’s the thought that counts. Secretly, Rey loves that it makes her feel a little more like family. 

Rey blows on her fingers when Rose is done, admiring the glossy sheen of them. “Perfect,” she says. 

Rose props her feet up on the coffee table and leans her head against Rey’s shoulder. “Perfect enough to forgive me for teasing you earlier?” she asks hopefully. 

Laughing a little, Rey nods. She’s had the whole afternoon to mellow out, and it’s hard to stay mad when Rose is being so sweet. “Yeah, I think so.” 

Paige emerges from the bedroom to settle on the other side of Rey with a long sigh. Her head lolls over to rest against Rey too, and for a long moment, they just sit there in a comfortable silence. 

As if on cue, Rey’s stomach rumbles. 

“I take it you didn’t grab dinner while you were out?” Rose asks, and Rey shakes her head. 

“We have two options,” Paige says, lifting two fingers. “One, we order a pizza. Our coupons expired yesterday. Two, we get off our asses and cook something. The beef is about to go bad, and we really need to use it. What do we want to do?” 

Rose is already pulling out her phone. “Sorry, I stopped listening after pizza.” 

Paige lets out a long breath. “Oh, thank God.” 

-

Blissed out on pizza and nail polish, Rey, Rose, and Paige spend the rest of the evening tangled up in each other on the couch watching reality shows. As the last one ends and the news takes over, Rey reaches for the remote, but Rose stops her. “Wait a second, wait a second, that’s our event!” 

Sure enough, the newscaster launches into a segment on the Met Gala. A parade of celebrities marches across the screen, the anchor talking about how well they fit the theme. Rey doesn’t recognize many of them beyond the passing glimpses she’d gotten at the gala.  

The image changes to a pale man with orange hair, and Rey wrinkles her nose. This one, she knows. “That guy whined at me about a lipstick smudge,” she says. 

“Hux?” Paige asks. “That guy’s an asshole. He’s literally always complaining about something, but because he’s the top designer at some fashion company, he gets to come everywhere. He probably thought up, like, half the outfits at that gala.” She nudges Rey’s foot with her own. “I’m sorry you had to listen to one of his rants.” 

“I didn’t really,” Rey says with a shrug. “Prince Solo came over before he could say much and told him to fuck off.” Her lips twitch slightly at the memory of Hux stalking off, clearly offended.  

Something like awe fills Paige’s eyes. “Oh, man, he must’ve been pissed. I wish I’d seen that. I take back anything bad I’ve ever said about Solo; any person who will tell Hux to fuck off has my respect.” 

Rey laughs a little but it quickly tapers off. She shouldn’t have brought him up. Now she’s thinking about him again. To the point of distraction, as it turns out, because she doesn’t catch a word of what the news anchor says for the rest of the segment. It isn’t until Rose finally clicks off the T.V. that she comes back to herself enough to say goodnight. 

The sisters disappear into their bedroom, leaving Rey to herself. She changes into the oversize t-shirt and black short shorts that pass as pajamas before getting into bed. Like an itch she can’t scratch, thoughts of him come flooding back. She groans and pushes her face into the pillow, willing them to leave her alone, but they are insistent.

Eventually, she sits up, scowling at nothing. Her laptop sits innocuously on top of her dresser, and she stares at it for a long minute before throwing back the covers and going to retrieve it.  _ It’s just a little research,  _ she tells herself.  _ It’s not like I’m the first person to look him up.  _ She types in ‘prince solo’ and gets page upon page of search results. 

Most of them are tabloid articles about his sexploits, and Rey skims over all of those. She comes across an article about his mother, Queen Leia Organa, and gets sucked in. Leia mentions her son a few times, the young Ben Solo, but it doesn’t give Rey much insight as to who he is, except for his name. Her lips form the word “Ben,” and she smiles a little. It’s a nice name. She also discovers that “young” turns out to be relative; he’s pushing 30, nearly 10 years her senior. Rey scans through a few more articles after that before clicking over to the images tab. 

There are pictures of him climbing out of and into limousines, a few of him in some type of uniform, some with his mother and other celebrities Rey half-recognizes. Then there are ones that are a little less polished, clearly taken when Ben wasn’t expecting it. Ones where he’s walking with random girls, their hands tangled together. He’s smiling in most of them, a stark contrast to the more posed pictures. 

Rey’s breath catches in her chest as his face fills her screen, a burst of warmth jolting through her. She bites down on her lip to ground herself a little, but it doesn’t help much. Her eyes travel slowly over the pictures, and she takes the opportunity to study him closer. She hadn’t realized how many moles he had the night before. Blushing, she wonders how many are hidden where she can’t see. 

With that thought, she slams the laptop shut and digs the heels of her hands into her eyes. God, she’s pathetic. He said what? Five sentences to her? And she’s furtively scrolling through his pictures at one in the morning like an obsessive ex. Sighing, she lets her arms fall to her mattress and stares up at the ceiling. That heat is still coiled in her abdomen and she shifts uncomfortably, squeezing her legs together. 

A voice in the back of her head whispers that there’s something she could do about that. She wouldn’t even have to imagine. She could just find what Rose and Paige had watched earlier- No. She is not getting off to his sex tape. 

Yet her hand gropes for her earbuds, untangles them, plugs them in. Heart pounding in her chest, she returns to her original search. It’s at the very bottom of the first page, but it’s there. The link sits there, blue-highlighted and mocking. She closes her eyes and clicks it. As the video starts, she cracks open one eye. 

“Are you sure you’re ready?” He’s got his fingers hooked in the girl’s underwear and tugs them off in one swift pull. Rey can’t help but notice the girl is a brunette -- does he have a type? -- as he pushes her back onto the mattress. 

She falls with an exaggerated giggle and presses her foot against Ben’s crotch. “Do your worst,” she purrs. 

Ben smirks down at her and starts undoing his belt. “Careful what you wish for.” 

Rey bites down on one knuckle. She should be cringing at how insanely embarrassing this whole thing is, but instead the fire in her belly flames hotter. She worms her free hand between her thighs and clamps it there, just to relieve some of the pressure. But she’s still not getting off to his sex tape. 

Then Ben shucks his pants, and Rey’s eyes fly wide open. Paige and Rose hadn’t been exaggerating; he’s… impressive, to say the least. Then exactly what she’s doing hits her, and her breath catches in her chest.  _ You’re not supposed to be looking.  _ For the second time that night, Rey slams her laptop shut. Her ragged breaths fill the sudden silence, and she rips her earbuds out and stuffs her computer under the bed before she can be tempted again. 

Rey tugs the covers up to her chin and wills herself to fall asleep, one hand still clamped between her thighs. The fabric of her shorts is too thin a barrier, the heat of her hand only making things worse. She squeezes her eyes shut, but she’s too wound up to drift off. Slowly, ever so slowly, her hand creeps over the curve of her stomach and past the waistline of her underwear. The barest brush of her fingers across her sex is enough to have her shuddering. Keeping her eyes closed, she rubs herself against her open palm, heels dug into the mattress to give herself some leverage. Her free hand clutches at the sheets as she picks up her pace, breath coming in staccato gasps. “Fuck,” she whispers, even though there’s no one there to hear it. “Fuck.” She turns her head into her shoulder and slips a finger inside herself. 

The heat expands until it’s running through her whole body, stretched taut like a livewire. Ready to break at any second. The echo of a deep voice rumbles in her ears, telling her to be careful what she wishes for, and then she brushes over that spot inside her and  _ snap.  _

Rey slumps back to the mattress with a relieved sigh, the unbearable heat now a pleasant, tingling warmth. When it dissipates enough for her to get her wits about her, she sneaks into the bathroom to wash her hands, studiously avoiding the mirror. The wave of desire has passed, shame rushing in to take its place. She’s definitely deleting her history. She slinks back into bed and pulls the covers back up, burrowing into her pillows. This time, when she closes her eyes, she manages to sleep. 


	2. Chapter 2

The reason for her strange neediness becomes apparent the second Rey opens her eyes. She feels a familiar cramping sensation and stumbles towards the bathroom, blessedly unoccupied. She digs under the counter to find -- no tampons. Not even an empty box. “Goddamn it,” she growls. Making a mental note to get down to the store, she settles for a pad instead. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s better than nothing. 

Rose and Paige’s bedroom door is slightly ajar, a sure sign that they’re both elsewhere. Rey is grateful for that. She was moody enough before she’d discovered they were out of tampons. For a second, she contemplates heading straight to the store, but her stomach feels like it’s about to eat itself, so she opts for breakfast instead. At least, she tries to. 

Rey already has a bowl of cereal poured and ready to go when she discovers the milk is expired. She takes a cautious sniff, hoping it might still be okay, but the smell has her recoiling so fast, she drops the carton. Sour milk splatters onto the floor and her legs. Rey drops her head in her hands and lets out a very long, very frustrated groan. This is really not her morning.

She digs out a mop and cleans up the mess, grumbling all the while. By the time she gets the milk wiped up and the carton thrown away, she’s ready to eat the cereal dry. She manages not to resort to that, but only just, slipping on flip-flops and slamming out of the apartment in her pajama shirt and a pair of leggings scooped off the floor. The store is only half a block away; she’s not bothering with real clothes. 

That decision bites her in the ass the moment she steps outside. Gray clouds cover the sky, threatening rain, and the wind hasn’t lost its biting edge. 

Rey wraps her arms around herself and trudges on towards the store, unwilling to head all the way back up to the loft just for a jacket. Goosebumps cover her flesh, and her flip-flops scuff the pavement as she shuffles her way along. The store isn’t much warmer than the outdoors, but she tells herself it is so she’ll stop shivering. 

They’re out of her usual brand of tampon, because of course they are, so she snatches the next cheapest option, tucks it under her arm, and makes a beeline for the milk. It’s there, in this state, Rey sees the last person she ever expected to see in a shitty cornerstore. 

Prince Ben Solo, dressed casually in baggy jeans and a maroon hoodie, stands checking over a carton of eggs. A strange sight, to be sure. She would have expected him to be waking up in some five-star hotel, swathed in thousand-thread-count sheets. Instead, he looks like he’s just rolled off a ratty old mattress and shuffled into the closest store he could find. Kind of like Rey.

She freezes at the end of the aisle and is just asking herself how much she really needs breakfast when he looks up and spots her. As soon as his eyes meet hers, she thinks, unbidden,  _ I’ve seen your dick.  _ She quashes that immediately. That is not coming up right now. That is not ever coming up at all. 

His brows pull together for a split second, then there’s a flash of recognition. “Rey? It’s Rey, right? You look… awful.”  

Maybe it’s because she feels guilty about getting off to the thought of him last night. Maybe it’s because he’d been stuck in her head for the past two days. Maybe it’s just because it’s been that kind of morning. Whatever it is, hearing Ben say she looks awful, even though she knows she does, pushes Rey over the edge. Tears push against the backs of her eyes, but she refuses to let them fall, covers the hurt with anger. “Yeah, sorry, the Met only  _ loaned  _ me that uniform.” 

Her irritation catches Ben off-guard. His eyebrows twitch upwards as he takes a closer look at her, sees the red rimming around her eyes. Then he notices what she’s carrying and grimaces. “Oh, shit, ah, Jesus. Look, I shouldn’t have said that, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Here, I’ll buy those for you, okay? As, like, an apology.”

Rey glances up at him, his anxious expression blurry through her unshed tears. Did he really just offer to buy her… tampons? She says the first thing that comes to mind. “Milk.” 

“What?” Ben asks, baffled. 

“Milk,” Rey repeats. She scrubs at her face to erase any signs of her almost-meltdown. “I need milk, too.”  

“Oh.” Ben relaxes a little, nods. “Sure, milk too.” 

Avoiding his gaze, Rey tugs a gallon of milk from the shelves and shuffles back over to him, eyes studiously fixed on the ground. They make their way to the cash register together, Rey half expecting him to rescind his offer now that she’s stopped threatening to be a weepy mess. But no, he gently pulls the groceries from her hands and adds them to his own without a word. 

The cashier rings up their items and speaks just as Ben is swiping his card. “You look really familiar there, guy. Do I know you?” 

“I don’t think so,” Ben says, plucking the receipt from the cashier’s hand and collecting their bags. “Guess I just have one of those faces.” With a taut smile, he starts heading for the entrance. 

Rey hurries after him with a glance back at the cashier who is staring at the back of Ben’s head in bemusement. She catches up with him right outside the doors, shivering as she steps back into the cold air. 

For the first time, Ben seems to realize what she’s wearing. Or rather, what she isn’t. “It’s cold as fuck out here. Why aren’t you wearing anything?” 

His annoyance annoys her. Like he has anything to do with her or her life, like he has any say in what state of dress she walks around in. “Thanks for the groceries,” she grumbles, prying the bag from his hands and ignoring his question. Abruptly, she turns and walks off without more of a goodbye. The gallon of refrigerated milk presses into her leg with every step, making the cold even worse. She’s only taken a few steps when the clouds open up, spatters of rain darkening the sidewalk around her. 

She opens her mouth -- maybe to cry again, maybe to scream -- but before she can do either, there’s a strange warmth piled on top of her head. Her vision is suddenly obscured by deep red fabric, and she’s forced to stop walking. Spluttering indignantly, she sets down her bag and claws the whatever-it-is off. 

It turns out to be a hoodie, the same one Ben had just been wearing. She turns to find him staring down at her, arms folded over his chest, eggs dangling from one hand. The flimsy black v-neck he’s got on underneath doesn’t offer much protection in the way of the cold, but it does give Rey a nice view of his arms. She bites her lip and pretends not to notice. “Take the hoodie,” he says. “Just… please.” 

Rey takes the hoodie. She doesn’t even protest, just slips her arms through the sleeves and tugs the hood over her head. Then, she picks her bag up and stares at Ben. 

“Okay. Good.” He nods and takes a step back, looking a little unsure of himself. “Bye.” 

“Bye,” Rey says, but he’s already moving off, and she’s not sure if he hears her. Slightly warmer and considerably drier, she makes her way back to the apartment to find it still empty. Rose and Paige must be having a day to themselves. Rey is happy to leave them to it. 

She spends a long time curled up in her bed, nestled in the hoodie. It hangs down almost to her knees and it feels like being wrapped in a hug. Even better, it smells faintly like Ben. She hadn’t known what his scent was until just then, but she catches it as she tugs the fabric over her hands and buries her nose in the sleeves, breathing deeply. It’s nice, a little like cinnamon. Rey has always liked cinnamon. 

Eventually, Rose and Paige return. They rustle around the living room for a little bit, chatting merrily with each other, before Rose approaches Rey’s corner. “Hey, Rey? You there?” she calls through the cloth. 

Rey mumbles something unintelligible. Despite having done nothing all day, she’s exhausted, halfway to asleep, though it’s barely evening.  

Taking that as confirmation enough, Rose pokes her head in, and Rey forces herself to wake up enough to listen. “Paige and I got some spanish rice from that street vendor a few blocks over. We’re gonna make tacos to go with it. Sound good?” 

The mention of food brings Rey out of her hoodie nest. “Sounds great,” she says, already climbing off her bed. 

There’s only room for two people in the kitchen, so Paige clears off the couch while Rose browns the beef and Rey shreds lettuce. They blast music while they work, a feel-good playlist they can all belt along to, and Rey starts to feel more like a real person. By the time they’re done cooking, the misery of the morning has all but disappeared.  

The three of them crowd onto the couch with their plates, Rey still swathed in Ben’s hoodie. The music plays on in the background, quieter now, taking a backseat to their conversation. 

“So, what did you two get up to today?” Rey asks. 

“Not much,” Paige says. “I just took Rose around to some of the old places I’ve worked.” 

Rose swallows a mouthful of rice. “I don’t think I’m cut out to be an event server,” she says. “Which means I’m back to job hunting.” 

Rey reaches around Paige to give her a sympathetic pat. “I’m not sure I’m cut out to be an event server, either,” she says. With a grimace, she recalls the way she’d almost upended a glass of champagne onto Hux. High-class was not her thing.  

“No?” Paige says, sounding far too innocent. “But you were so popular with the guests. Well. One guest in particular.” 

Rolling her eyes, Rey bites viciously into her taco. “Shut up,” she mumbles. 

Rose changes the subject, tugging at the sleeve of her hoodie. “Is this new?” she asks. “I don’t think I’ve seen it before.” 

“Yeah,” Rey says. “I went shopping.” There’s no way she’s telling them Ben gave it to her; they have enough to tease her about already. Letting them know she’d seen him again would only add fuel to the fire. Besides, it wasn’t even really a lie. She  _ had  _ gone shopping. Just not for a hoodie. 

After they finish eating, Rey volunteers to clean the dishes, a way to make up for having done so little that day. Rose and Paige don’t fight her on it. They curl up next to each other and start looking for jobs, occasionally asking Rey’s opinion on one position or another. 

All in all, Rey thinks as she dunks plates in sudsy water, her day hadn’t turned out too poorly, even with such a horrid start. Exhaustion is back tugging at Rey’s limbs by the time she sets the last dish in the drying rack. “I think I’m-” she interrupts herself with a yawn, “-going to head to bed,” she finishes with a sheepish smile. 

“Guess we’ll get out of your bedroom, then.” Rose closes her laptop and hops off the couch. 

Rey starts to protest that they don’t have to, but she’s yawning again before she can say anything. 

Settling a gentle hand on her shoulder, Paige tells her to get some rest. Rey promises she’ll try. 

She sets her alarm for work the next morning before curling up in a different set of pajamas than the ones she’d been wearing all day. She doesn’t take off the hoodie, though she considers it. What if sleeping in it gets rid of Ben’s scent altogether? It’s a chance she decides to take. She’s supposed to be forgetting about him anyways. 

-

Rey has never been late to work, not once, and she doesn’t intend to be this morning either. Even if she had hit snooze. Twice. She rushes out of the apartment without breakfast or even a mug of coffee, leaping onto her bike and racing through the streets. It’s only about 45 minutes on her bike to the auto shop where she works, but it feels much longer with the clock ticking steadily on towards 7am. Thankfully, there isn’t too much traffic so early in the morning, and the streets are relatively clear. Her mind, however, is still cluttered with thoughts of a maroon hoodie and a lingering trace of cinnamon.

She skids into the lot with mere seconds to spare. She dumps her bike unceremoniously on the ground with a mental note to lock it up later and dashes through the back entrance to the garage. The ancient computer they use to clock in is waiting for her, and she logs in just as the clock switches over. 

“One day, you’re going to be late like a normal person,” a voice behind her says, “and I’m going to savor it.” 

Rey turns to find Finn in the entrance to the garage, two steaming cups of coffee in his hands. She eyes them hopefully. “Is one of those for me?” 

Finn nods and holds one out for her. 

Sighing, she takes it and sips at it reverently. It’s made just the way she likes it, so sweet it almost doesn’t count as coffee anymore. “You’re a saint,” she murmurs. 

“And you were almost late,” Jyn Erso, the owner of the shop, says. Her gray-streaked hair is swept up in a no-nonsense ponytail, her jumpsuit grease-stained and rumpled even though the day has just begun. “You feeling okay?” 

For a split second, Rey considers telling her, spilling her guts about the prince that’s been keeping her up at night. Jyn is fiercer than she looks, but she has a soft spot for her employees. She’d taken a chance on Rey when she’d come to her without a degree or any previous job experience and accepted Finn without a second thought, even though he’d used to work for her competitors. If Rey wants to tell her that she’s hung up on some guy she has no right to be hung up on, Jyn will listen. Something keeps her mouth shut, though, and she just nods. “Better now that I have coffee,” she says lightly. 

If Jyn notices she’s hiding something, she doesn’t mention it. “Caffeine is a godsend,” she says with a wry smile. “Get into your suit once you’re done. I want Finn on the counter today and you in the garage.” With that, she’s breezing past the two of them into the office where she spends most of her time now that she has two able-bodied employees. She’s not adverse to getting her hands dirty, but Rey knows she’s not as young as she used to be either. 

Maybe, just maybe, Rey will sneak away later to talk to her. She could use some motherly advice, and Jyn is the closest thing she has to one these days. Finn speaks up then, jerking her away from her thoughts.

“I was thinking about grabbing lunch at the Hot Dog Cart later.” He eyes her from his spot in the doorway, sipping at his own coffee. “Want to come with?” 

“Sure.” Rey hadn’t had time to pack a lunch that morning, and her stomach is already rumbling from her skipped breakfast. It’s going to be a long day. 

The fingernail polish Rose had so carefully applied is chipped within minutes as Rey’s fingers dance over engines and rummage through toolboxes. The stress of the past few days seems to flake away with the paint. The scent of Ben’s hoodie is replaced with rubber and oil; his face is lost amidst carburetors and chrome. She’s stretched flat underneath a car wrestling with an oil drain plug when someone pulls into the lot. 

There’s a slamming door and the crunch of footsteps on gravel as they approach the garage. Rey is about to slide out and tell them to go through the front when the bell on Jyn’s office door jingles and her voice calls out a greeting. 

“Not too broken to make it here, apparently,” she says, amusement clear in her voice. 

The rumbling reply is lost in the suctioned pop as Rey finally loosens the plug. Immediately, she shoves an oil pan under the opening, only to frown when nothing comes out. Okay. That’s a problem. She reaches for the penlight in her belt and shines it up the passage, searching for whatever could be obstructing it. 

“We’re not really known for dealing with antiques,” Jyn is saying, her voice growing louder as she enters the garage. “Doesn’t mean we don’t know how to take care of it, though.” 

“My dad used to talk about you all the time,” her client says. “I figured you must know what you were doing.” 

This time, Rey can hear the reply, and she freezes stiff as the Creeper she’s lying on. Her hand tightens around the penlight, breath coming a bit faster. Did she unknowingly hit snooze a third time and is actually still in bed dreaming? Because that voice sounded a lot like Ben’s. And apparently Jyn knows him, or at least his family. Suddenly grateful to be stuck under a car, Rey takes her time poking around the oil line. Her stomach clenches at the thought that she’d almost spilled her guts about Ben right to Jyn’s face. She’s not sure she could have lived that down. 

Jyn’s laugh echoes around the garage. “Flattery will get you everywhere, but, I’ve got to be honest, I don’t do much work of my own anymore. I’m a lot stiffer these days than when your dad knew me. Still, I think I know just the person to help you out.” 

_ Finn,  _ Rey silently begs.  _ Or you, Jyn. Just this once. Anyone, really. Anyone but- _

“Niima!” Jyn nudges Rey’s Creeper with her foot. “Got a car here for you.” 

_ -me.  _ Rey sighs and slips her penlight back into her toolbelt. She rolls out from under the car and gets to her feet without looking at Ben. “Plugged up oil drain,” she mumbles. Only then does she acknowledge Ben. If she hadn’t been looking for it, she would have missed his flash of surprise. She figures royals have to get good at hiding their emotions. 

“Rey here can take care of you,” Jyn says, clapping her on the shoulder. “Rey, this is Ben Solo, Prince of Alderaan. His parents and I go way back.” 

Ben holds his hand out with polite indifference. “Nice to meet you.” He gives no sign that he knows her.

Rey tries to act equally indifferent, arranging her face into what she hopes is an expressionless mask. She moves to take his hand but notices how black and greasy her fingertips are. Hesitant, she draws back a little, about to apologize, but Ben keeps his hand extended until she tentatively accepts it. His skin is smooth against her own calluses, a road map of their upbringings. When he lets her go, her arm falls back to her side. “Am I supposed to bow?” she asks. 

Ben smirks just like he had at the Met, and Rey goes weak in the knees. “Handshakes are fine,” he says. 

Jyn claps Rey on the shoulder and starts steering her towards the lot. She leans closer and speaks in an undertone as Ben falls into step behind them. “You’re going to love his car.” 

Rey mutters something that might be agreement, but privately, she doubts it. His car won’t leave well enough alone. His car has brought Ben Solo right to her doorstep. She will never forgive his car. 

She’s gone the moment she claps eyes on it. She doesn’t love it for what it is, but for what it could be. As it stands, it’s a ghost of what it once was, a 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle that had seen far better days. The once-silver paint is gray and peeling, the tires are threadbare, rust sits in the wheel wells. But Rey can see potential hidden right underneath the surface. All it would take is a little -- or a lot -- of hard work, and it could be something beautiful. 

Rey doesn’t even realize she’s walked towards it until her fingers are running along the hood, tracing over the jutting fender. 

Jyn watches with a satisfied smile on her face. “I’ll leave the three of you to get acquainted,” she says. 

Rey barely hears her, only vaguely notices that she’s turned around and gone back to the shop, leaving her essentially alone with Ben. She comes back to herself when he leans against the front door, elbow propped up on the roof. 

“Think you can fix it?” he asks. 

“What? Oh.” Rey clears her throat and digs a small notepad and pencil out of her chest pocket. “Probably. What’s wrong with it?”

Ben raises one eyebrow. “I don’t know. That’s why I brought it here.” 

Rey blinks at him, unimpressed. “What’s it doing that made you bring it here?” she tries again. 

“It just doesn’t… sound right, I don’t know, I’m not good with cars.” Ben lifts his chin a little defensively, as if expecting a challenge. 

She wants to punch him in his stupid, perfect mouth. She wants to kiss him in his stupid, perfect mouth just as much. Instead of doing either, Rey takes a long breath through her nose to compose herself. “Okay,” she says. “Let’s start with the basics, then. When was the last time you had the transmission checked?” 

Ben glances down at the car. “Uh, I haven’t.” 

Rey hums and marks on the pad to look it over. “That’s fine, not most people’s first thought. I notice you don’t have an inspection tag, either. Any idea when the last one was?”

Looking utterly at a loss, Ben shrugs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, inspection tag,” he says. 

Rey lifts an eyebrow. “You’re supposed to get your car inspected every 12 months. Required in the state of New York. How do you not know this?” She tries to quell her exasperation, half-hoping he’s only feigning ignorance. 

“That’s not a thing in Alderaan.” 

“Well, you’re not driving it in Alderaan,” Rey points out. With an effort, she reclaims her veneer of professionalism and notes that on the pad too. “When’d you last replace your timing belt?” 

Ben shifts uncomfortably. “Timing belt,” he repeats. 

“Yes,” Rey says, a sense of dismay settling over her. “The thing you’re supposed to get replaced every 10 years so your engine works.” 

Ben shakes his head. 

Dismay turns into something closer to horror. “Brake pads? Oil change? You  _ have  _ changed your oil at least once, right?” 

“Um...” Ben’s expression says that he’d rather be anywhere else at the moment. 

“Oh my god.” Rey’s voice is a strangled whisper. “When was the last time you did literally anything with this car?”  

Ben folds his arms over his chest defensively. “About half an hour ago, I drove it here to see you.” 

Rey buries her face in her hands and groans. It was a beautiful car once, and he’s treated it like it’s little more than garbage. She glares through her fingers at Ben. “I want you to know that I am in physical pain right now.” She turns to the car, placing her hands on the hood and bending towards it. “I’m so sorry he did this to you,” she says. 

“Hey, it still runs!” Ben protests. 

“By  _ some  _ miracle.” Rey rolls her eyes. 

Ben pushes off the car and runs a hand through his hair. “So what does it need?” 

“It absolutely can’t leave this lot until the oil is changed, you have a new timing belt, and I’ve checked the transmission,” Rey says, shifting into business mode. It’s easier to deal with Ben like this, on her own territory. “Beyond that, it should probably have new brake pads and tires, but those aren’t going to explode on you, so they’re less urgent. Marginally. And you’ll get slapped with a fine if you get caught without an inspection tag. To be honest, though,” and her voice softens a little as she smooths her hand over the hood, “I could do terrible, wonderful things to this car.” 

Ben’s reply surprises her. “So, do them,” he says, lifting one shoulder in a sort of shrug. 

For a second, Rey can only stare at him, lost for words. “What?” she asks. 

“Look, you’re clearly the expert here. This car belonged to my dad, and I’ve been meaning to fix it up for him for a while, but I know fuck-all about it. If you think you can make it good again, then do it.” Ben pats the roof twice as if the matter is already settled. 

Rey automatically starts running through a list of changes she’d like to make, but she forces herself to shake her head. “It would cost-” 

“A fortune?” Ben finishes for her. “Lucky for us, I have access to one of those. Whatever parts you need, I can get them for you, no worries. I just have one condition.” 

Rey narrows her eyes. She should have known there would be strings attached. Golden opportunities didn’t just dump themselves into people like her’s laps. “What?” she asks. 

“I want to keep it at my place,” Ben says. “Just so I can keep an eye on it, know it’s safe. I’m a little ways outside the city, but I’ll pay for taxis or whatever you use to get out there.” 

Rey eases back a step, her expression skeptical. “Do you realize how creepy that sounds? ‘Come work for me in my secluded place outside the city. You’ll be fine, I promise.’ As if that isn’t the start of every horror movie.” 

Ben snorts. “For God’s sake, Rey, I can’t even kiss someone without it ending up in the news. How do you expect me to get away with murder?” 

Rey considers that for a moment, remembers the pages full of pictures Ben clearly hadn’t meant to have taken. “Okay, fine, maybe you wouldn’t murder me. But still, it’s not that easy,” she says with a wave of her hand. “I’d need a garage to work in; fixing cars is more than just having the parts.” 

Ben doesn’t back down. “My dad has a workshop there; you can use that.” 

Rey opens and closes her mouth. She can’t even comprehend the kind of person who has enough money to have their own workshop built. “I… I’ll have to ask Jyn,” she says, but she’s already sold on the idea. She wants this, desperately. It’s always been a dream of hers to get to fix an old car up exactly the way she’d like, but she never thought she’d have the chance. Now that it’s staring her in the face, she doesn’t want to give it up. Not caring if it makes her seem too eager, she excuses herself to ask Jyn then and there. 

Jyn looks up when she knocks on the doorframe, whipping off the reading glasses she swears she doesn’t need and clearing her throat. “What’s up?” 

Rey relays what Ben has just told her, watching Jyn’s face closely as she speaks. She does her best to sound neutral, but she can’t help the thin thread of excitement underlying every word. 

Jyn hums when Rey falls silent, considering. “As long as he’s paying, I have no problem with you working off-site,” she says after an agonizing pause. “I know he’s good for it, obviously, and I’m sure I can convince Cassian to fill in for you here for a few weeks.” 

Excitement frissons through Rey’s veins, and she barely stops herself from bounding into the office and wrapping Jyn up in a hug. Since that would be wildly unprofessional, she lets her smile speak for her. “Thank you so, so much. You were right, by the way. I love the car.” She’s forgiven it for everything, even if it does mean she’ll have to deal with being around Ben. It’s a small price to pay to live out a fantasy. 

“I’m always right,” Jyn mutters, turning back to her paperwork. “Make sure you get that oil drain fixed up before working on your new baby, though. Solo may be a prince, but it’s still first come, first serve.” 

“Yes, ma’am.” Rey snaps a salute and practically skips back towards Ben. 

The corners of his mouth twitch as she approaches. “I take it she said yes?” he asks. 

The smug lilt to his voice should annoy her, but even it can’t ruin her good mood. “She said yes,” she confirms with a bright smile. 

“Give me your phone,” Ben says, holding his hand out expectantly. 

Rey’s smile erodes a little, her brows drawn together in confusion. “Um. Why?” 

Ben gestures a little impatiently. “So I can give you my number. I’ll text you the address, and you can tell me what you need so I can have it all ready.” 

His logic is sound, but Rey hands over her phone a little tentatively. She doesn’t go around giving her number out to strange men, and for all intents and purposes, Ben is a strange man. One that she’s bizarrely attracted to, maybe, but that only worries her more. It’s easier to say things through text than it is in person. What if she slips up? Quietly resolving to only text him about business matters, Rey accepts her phone back. “Okay. If you go in and let Finn know your car is here, he can put you on the schedule and we’ll call you when it’s done.” 

“How am I supposed to leave without my car?” Ben asks. 

“Do what the rest of us non-royals do,” Rey says, rolling her eyes. “Call a taxi.”

Ben makes a face. “Would it be okay if I just… waited here?” 

“You can,” Rey says, already fishing her penlight back out of her toolbelt. “There’s a waiting area up front. It shouldn’t take me too long to get this one-” she tilts her head toward the other car waiting patiently for her to get back to it, “-figured out, then I’ll start working on yours.”  

Ben nods, shoves his hands in his pockets, and trails after her into the garage.

Rey glances back at him when she notices and asks, “What are you doing?” 

“Is there anything to do in the waiting area?” Ben asks rhetorically. 

“I guess not,” Rey concedes. She stretches out on the Creeper, staring up at him from her prone position. “But there’s not really much to do back here either.” 

Ben shrugs and leans against the long workbench. It’s messy with tools and old food wrappers, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “There’s you,” he says. 

Instantly, Rey rolls her Creeper under the car so he can’t catch her blush. “Yeah, real fascinating,” she says, relieved when her voice is steady. “A pair of legs under a car.” She wiggles her feet as if to emphasize how much nothing there is to look at at. His low chuckle echoes around the garage and settles somewhere in Rey’s chest. She shakes her head and tries to concentrate on the oil line. “Keep it together,” she whispers to herself. 

She keeps it together enough to find out what’s blocking the passage -- a compacted wad of leaves -- and extract it without getting  _ too  _ much oil on herself. There are a few spatters on the collar of her jumpsuit and her fingers are as black as her nail polish, but the oil drains out steadily. “Finally,” she sighs. She pushes out from under the car and brushes her flyaways irritably out of her face, leaving black streaks in her wake. 

Ben presses his lips together, trying and failing to hide his amusement. 

“Shut up,” Rey growls. “It’s a part of the business.” 

“I know,” Ben says. “It explains why your hands were greasy at the gala. I have to admit, I was pretty curious about that. Mechanic wasn’t my first guess.” 

Rey’s jaw drops open a little. “You noticed that?” she squeaks. 

Ben inclines his head. “I notice a lot of things.” 

_ Fucking apparently,  _ Rey thinks as she fetches the oil can. She scoops what she needs out of the drum and checks the oil pan to make sure it’s done draining before plugging it back up and feeding in the new oil. She’s done in a matter of minutes, and then she’s the one holding her hand out towards Ben. “Keys,” she says. 

He hands them over. 

Rey is surprised the Chevy doesn’t burst into flames in the few feet it takes to pull it into the garage. It didn’t sound right, Ben had said, and he certainly hadn’t been wrong. The steering column creaks and groans, the engine makes an ominous rattling sound, and the brakes shriek in protest if she so much as sets her foot on the pedal. Relief floods her when she shuts it off, and she steps out already glaring at Ben. “This thing should sue you for neglect.” 

Ben smiles sheepishly and rubs the back of his neck. “Good thing it can’t?” 

“Very good thing.” Rey pops the hood, propping it up and leaning in to get a good look at the engine. She sucks in a breath when she sees it. “Prince or not, if you’ve killed this engine, Ben Solo, I will kill you.” 

Ben leans in next to her to peer at it himself. “Is it a good one?” he asks. 

Rey refrains from touching it only because the car had just been running. “Yes,” she breathes. “It’s an L34 350hp. This will get you from zero to 60 in less than five seconds.” She wrinkles her nose. “At least, it will when it’s in working condition. If you tried that now, it would probably just fall apart on you.” 

“Okay, okay, I get it, I’m a bad car owner,” Ben sighs. “Can we move on?” 

“I wonder if it’s the original,” Rey says. “Less than 2,000 cars had this engine. Either your dad was lucky, or he replaced it at some point.” She digs around in the car’s innards for a bit, getting herself acquainted. It also has the advantage of distracting her from the fact that Ben is so close she can feel his body heat. Or is that the engine? “Okay, so not the original,” she says when she comes back up. Her hair is billowing around her face again, but she’s given up on trying to keep it tidy.

Ben glances down at the labyrinth of car parts. “How can you tell?” 

Rey pats the fender. “It’s a 1970, right?” When Ben nods, she continues, “Would’ve come with small block springs. Your dad probably put in big ones when he swapped the engine. One of those springs is broken, by the way.”

Ben takes out his phone. “Big block spring?” he asks. 

“Yes.” As he makes a note to get one for her, Rey takes a look at the timing belt. “Jesus Christ. Are you sure you don’t want to grab a taxi? This might take a bit.” 

Sighing, Ben reclaims his place near the counter. “I guess I kind of deserve this,” he says. 

Rey laughs and sets about gathering what she’ll need. “You definitely deserve this.” She has to shoo Ben away from the workbench for a bit to collect some of her tools, but he takes his place right back up once she’s gone. 

It takes her the better part of three hours to get finished with the basics. The transmission was surprisingly fine, so she’d avoided having to mess with it, but the oil, timing belt, and brake pads had all been in desperate need of replacement. Along the way, she’d discovered the power steering fluid had been leaking for who-knew-how-long and had fixed that up too with some very choice words for Ben about routine car maintenance. 

He takes them meekly enough, though she doubts she’s really getting through to him. A decade of owning the car hasn’t, so why should now be any different? 

Rey carefully shuts the hood, wipes her hands on her jumpsuit, and steps back. “You should be okay to drive it now without worrying that it’s going to blow up on you,” she says. “I’d like to replace the tires, too, but my lunch break is about to start, and I’m sure you want to get home.” 

Suddenly looking a bit unsure of himself, Ben clears his throat. “I could take you somewhere,” he offers. “It would be a good way to test out the car.”  

Rey tries to ignore the butterflies fluttering around her stomach at the suggestion, but she shakes her head. “Sorry, I kind of have plans already.” As if on cue, Finn steps into the garage and waves at her. 

“You ready to head out?” he asks. He notices Ben and gives him a nod, clearly not recognizing him. “Sup?” 

The look on Ben’s face, like Finn had stuck a lemon in his mouth instead of greeting him, has Rey stifling a giggle. “Give me a second to wash my hands, then we can go.” As she heads into the bathroom, she can hear Finn trying to strike up a conversation with Ben. A few minutes of scrubbing succeeds in getting the worst of the grime off her fingers, but they’re still distinctly dark. Grimacing, she gives up and rejoins Finn. They’re just going to get dirty as soon as she gets back to work anyways. 

Ben has cleared a space for himself on the counter and is sitting on it, staring out at the parking lot. He glances at Rey when she comes back and stretches out his hand. “Can I have the keys? I’ll come back to get new tires in a couple hours.”  

“You could come with us,” Rey says. She unzips her jumpsuit halfway, pulls her arms free, and ties it off around her waist. Her wife-beater is little more than thin cotton, and the cool air is a mercy after the cramped heat of the car. 

Ben side-eyes Finn before shaking his head and gesturing for the keys again. “I’ll come back,” he says again. 

“Suit yourself.” Rey hands the keys over and turns to Finn, slipping her arm through his and tugging him towards the sidewalk. She’d been able to ignore her hunger while she’d been working, but now hot dogs are all she can think about. “Let’s hot dogs.” 

Finn falls into step beside her as they start off in the direction of the stand. “Your friend wasn’t much of a conversationalist,” he says. 

Rey snorts. “He’s not much of a friend, either, honestly. I barely know him.” Even though she’d been equally ignorant about his status just a few days ago, she teases, “I’m surprised you didn’t know who he was.” 

There’s a lull in the conversation as they reach the stand and place their orders. Rey gets as many toppings as possible; her eyes gleam as she watches the cook pile them on. She takes it from him with a fervent “thank you,” and she and Finn wander over to a low brick wall separating a row of houses from the sidewalk. They settle onto it, Finn facing the road, Rey facing him, legs crossed. 

“Who is he?” Finn asks once they’re seated. 

Rey takes a minute to respond, too lost in a rapturous first bite to pay attention. She’s never too busy to appreciate good food. Once she’s swallowed, she fills Finn in. “Some prince, I guess. Rose and Paige were telling me about him after I saw him at the gala. Prince Solo.” 

Finn freezes mid-bite. “Solo?” he asks with his mouth full. Quickly, he chews, swallows, and stares at her in awe. “As in Han Solo?” 

Rey goes completely and utterly still. Ben really  _ had  _ gotten to her. She’d been so focused on him that she hadn’t even made the connection. “Oh my god,” she whispers. “Yeah, I think so. I think Han is his dad.” 

Finn sets his hot dog down and half-turns to face her. “You mean to tell me,” he says, “that we had Han Solo’s car sitting in our garage this whole time. And you’ve been working on it all day.” 

“Oh my god,” Rey repeats. 

It was the Falcon. It had to be. Everyone who knew about cars knew about Han Solo, and anyone who knew about Han Solo knew about the Falcon. He’d been a record-breaking race car driver for years and had more than one track named in his honor. When he wasn’t racing, he was in the Falcon. The car was nearly as famous as he was, known for its distinctive paint job -- patterned after a peregrine falcon, the car’s namesake -- and the sheer amount of miles he’d put on it. Han had gone everywhere in that car. Rey had lost interest when she’d moved foster homes and her access to television had been abruptly cut off. By the time she’d switched houses, the Falcon had disappeared from the streets.  

Finn groans. “Why couldn’t Jyn have put me in the garage today?” he laments, face upturned toward the sky. “Not that you won’t do a good job with it. I’m just insanely jealous.” He smiles over at Rey. 

She shakes her head at her own stupidity. “You probably deserve it more than I do, considering I didn’t even recognize it,” she says. 

“Nah.” Finn shakes his head. “Jyn knows what she’s doing. If she thinks you’re the best one for it, then you are.” 

Rey knocks Finn’s shoulder with her own, and they exchange grins. She goes back to her hot dog, but her stomach has tied itself up in knots. She doesn’t feel worthy to work on something like the Falcon. It’s a legend. She’s no one. And she can’t help but wonder how Ben got it. It was hard to imagine Han giving it up, or letting it fall into such a state. Her phone seemed to burn in her pocket, and she remembered Ben putting his number in mere hours ago. It would be so easy just to ask him… But that would be crossing the professional line she’d drawn, stray a little too close to the personal. Better to not ask questions and just fix the thing. 

They take their time finishing lunch, lounging in the weather that’s starting to actually be nice. The cold of the last few days has given way to weak sunshine and a refreshing breeze. Rey leans back on her elbows, face tilted towards the sun. If the weather holds, she might be able to convince Rose or Paige to go sunbathing with her. 

Eventually, their lunch hour winds down, and she and Finn walk back to the garage. There are a couple cars parked in the lot, their owners glancing anxiously into the dark office. Finn hurries over to unlock the doors. Rey disappears into the garage, her phone buzzing in her back pocket. Her traitorous heart leaps when she sees that it’s a text from Ben, and the smallest of smiles crosses her lips when she sees he’s added a crown next to his name. 

**_be there in about 30 for new tires_ **

_ okay,  _ she replies,  _ but there are a few people here. you’ll be waiting again :)  _

**_you mock my pain_ **

Rey snorts in amusement, quickly tucking her phone away when Jyn emerges from her office. 

“Last I checked, we had some customers to get to,” she says. 

Rey smiles apologetically. “Just waiting for Finn to get them checked in!” 

Jyn rolls her eyes, but she doesn’t look upset. “I’m sure you were. So long as everything gets done.” 

“It will,” Rey promises. 

She spends the half hour it takes Ben to return aligning tires, replacing headlights, and dealing with stubborn A/C units. She hasn’t bothered fixing her jumpsuit back up, and her tank-top is damp with sweat, her arms and shoulders streaked with dirt and grime. It’s only going to get worse as it warms up, she knows. At least she won’t have to wear a uniform when she’s working in Ben’s backyard. 

He pulls up right as Rey’s closing up a container of coolant. “Perfect timing,” she greets him. “How’d she drive?” 

“A lot better,” Ben admits. “I didn’t realize how rough the ride was until now.” 

The brief drive to the lift is enough to convince Rey that she really can restore the car to its former glory. If it improved so much with so few modifications, she can’t imagine how it’ll do when it’s had some actual work put in. A hydraulic whine fills the air as she winches the lift up. She’s not surprised when Ben chooses to stay with her instead of in the waiting area. “You know you’re going to have to go in there to pay, right?” she asks. 

Ben shrugs. “I’ll go in when I have to.” 

“So what am I replacing these with?” Rey asks, setting one tire spinning. 

Ben raises his hands to distance himself from the decision. “Totally up to you,” he says. “I couldn’t tell you what my dad put on there.” 

Rey halts the tire and glances at him, head tilted. “It wasn’t these?” She’d thought he would have stuck with one kind, replaced them whenever they wore out. It’s what she would have done. 

“No,” Ben says. He doesn’t offer anymore explanation than that, and Rey goes about removing the old ones with a shrug. 

She rolls them to the back of the garage and makes a quick trip to the warehouse where they store their extra parts. She knows exactly what she’s going to use. Her feet lead her unerringly to the wide tread Speedways, and she stacks four F70-14s onto her cart. 

Ben’s eyes stay fixed on her as she hauls them into place one by one, the muscles in her arms straining. She thinks she can see something like admiration on his face and can’t help but preen a little. She works hard for these arms; it’s nice to have them be appreciated. “You might want to wait a bit before pushing these things too hard,” Rey warns as she lowers the car back down. “It’s going to run a lot better, but that broken engine spring will keep it bumpy until I replace it.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” Ben says. He gets down from the counter right as the Falcon’s wheels touch the ground. “Inside to pay, you said?” 

Rey nods and enters what she’s done into the computer, watching him through the glass door as he approaches Finn. He seems slightly more relaxed now than he had earlier, though that could just be because he’s actually forced to talk to him this time. Rey takes the time to say goodbye to the Falcon. “You’re in better hands now, I promise,” she whispers.

Ben comes back out, promises to text her the address, and starts the car. It purrs to life, and he throws Rey a thumbs-up before pulling out of the lot. 

-

As promised, he texts her the address a few hours later. Rey doesn’t trust herself to reply. 

\- 

It’s almost midnight. Rey is sprawled out on her bed, phone buried somewhere in her covers. She should be asleep, but the events of the day haven’t settled in her head yet. Ben is supposed to be above her, the type of person she’d never meet once, let alone thrice in the span of a few days. This is karma, she decides. Cosmic retribution for watching that stupid sex tape.

A text comes in, and Rey hunts for her phone with one hand, smoothing it over the bed until it bumps into the device. She’s not even surprised to see it’s Ben, given the line of her thoughts. 

**_you up?_ **

_ is this about the car? _

**_no_ **

_ then no. im fast asleep _

**_are you serious_ **

**_rey_ **

**_rey_ **

**_do you still have my hoodie?_ **


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for anyone who likes having references, [ here ](https://www.houlihanlawrence.com/property/53561823/5-oakledge-road-bronxville-ny-10708) is the house that i based ben's mansion on
> 
> it's also for sale if y'all have a spare $9.95 million lying around >.>

Out of habit, Rey wakes up early enough to get to the shop. She’s already got coffee brewing by the time she remembers Ben mentioning he isn’t a morning person.  _ Well, tough,  _ she thinks, pouring half the pot into a thermos.  _ He’s going to be one today.  _ She dresses practically, in a black shirt and cargo shorts with plenty of pockets. The day is already warm enough to forego a jacket, and she thinks that maybe she should have appreciated the cold weather more while it lasted. 

She catches a cab and gives the driver Ben’s address. 

He sucks in a breath through his teeth and whistles. “You sure you got that right?” he asks. “That’s a pretty up-scale area.” He glances at her simple attire meaningfully. 

Eyes narrowed, Rey snaps, “I know where I’m going,” even though she doesn’t have any idea where she’s going. “Just drive.” 

The driver turns around and shifts into drive. 

Rey slugs down coffee as the gray blur of buildings starts to disintegrate. Green fills the gaps, and skyscrapers give way to houses give way to mansions. Rey gulps and clutches her thermos. He may have been rude about it, but the driver had a point; she doesn’t exactly look like she belongs here. The few women she glimpses on the street are dressed in yoga pants and sports bras that probably cost as much as Rey’s fanciest outfits. 

Wilting, Rey presses herself against the seat, wishing she could disappear into the pleather. She should have insisted Ben just keep the car at the garage. 

The car turns into a long, winding driveway lined with trees. Gravel crunches beneath the tires until they reach an imposing black gate. A glance through the bars reveals a three-story stone mansion, gorgeously intimidating. A keypad halts their progress, and the cabbie rests an arm on the backseat as he turns to look at her. “Am I supposed to know the code?” 

“No,” Rey says with a shake of her head. She hadn’t been expecting the gate, or the sheer size of the place. This is distinctly out of her element. “Just… let me out here.” 

The driver turns back around and waits while she pays the fare and gets out. He pulls away as soon as the door closes, and Rey turns to face the unyielding black metal. 

She approaches the gate and gives it an experimental push. It doesn’t move an inch. Sighing, she trudges back to the keypad and pulls out her phone.  _ im here. what’s the code?  _

It takes a few long, boring minutes for her to get a reply. She’s just about to give up waiting and try calling when he responds. 

**_why the fuck are you up so early_ **

_ it’s like 8  _

**_ungodly_ **

**_2187 btw_ **

_ thanks _

Rey keys it in and breathes a sigh of relief when the gates start sliding open. She still has a bit of a hike up to the actual house, but she’s too busy taking everything in to mind. The yard alone has  her gaping. When coupled with the house, her jaw practically drags along the pavement. 

The lawn is lush and green even though it was just winter. A line of dense shrubbery shadows the fence to keep out prying eyes, not that Rey could blame anyone for staring. The place seems straight out of a fairytale. The house towers above her, gray stone complemented by light blue wall paneling and wood hatching. Stone pathways with flowerbed sentinels lead to a sprawling patio that wraps around the front of the house. The side entrance that she passes first is framed by trimmed hedges in neat patterns. A copper fountain bubbles merrily in their midst. Another, smaller structure lies at the far end of the looping driveway, and Rey guesses that’s where she’ll be working.  

She oscillates between it and the house proper, unsure which to approach. The place looks like a castle with arched doorways and crenellated stonework. It takes all she has in her to walk up to one of the doors. She’s not even sure which one is the main entrance; there’s at least three potential candidates, and she simply picks the one she’s closest to. 

A short flight of steps leads up to the entranceway, and Rey mounts them with rising tension. She feels like an imposter, like a bargain bin dress that’s been mistaken for a gown. Gnawing at her bottom lip, she rings the doorbell. It echoes. She’s never heard a doorbell have enough space to echo. “Oh, Rey,” she whispers to herself. “What did you get yourself into?” 

Nothing happens for so long that she starts to panic. What if she’s gotten the wrong house? What if Ben doesn’t even live here and some stranger is going to come and ask what the hell she’s doing there, defiling his storybook property? She reminds herself that the code Ben had given her had worked, but she can’t shake the image of her being chased off the place. 

When the door opens, it reveals a weary-looking Ben, sleep-rumpled hair in a dark halo around his head, a black robe loosely tied over a white t-shirt. “We’re going to have to work on your arrival time,” he mutters. 

Rey sighs, so relieved to see him she doesn’t even care if he notices. “Here,” she says, thrusting the hoodie she’d kept bundled in her arms at him. She’s a bit disappointed to have to give it up; it still carries traces of cinnamon. 

Ben blinks at it, uncomprehending. Realization slowly blooms as he takes it from her, but he doesn’t seem any less confused. “What’d you bring this for? You can’t be cold.” 

Rey’s brow furrows. “Your text…” 

“I was just asking if you still had it,” Ben says. “I didn’t need it back. But thanks, I guess.” He tosses it carelessly off to one side and steps outside. “Come on, I’ll show you the garage.” 

Rey trails after him, trying her absolute hardest not to stare openly at everything, though she’s far from comprehending it. “So, how many other people live here?” she asks, craning her head to look at a particularly beautiful white-blossom tree.  

Ben fishes a key from the pocket of his robe and unlocks the garage door. “It’s just me,” he says. “My parents stay here sometimes, but they’re both in Alderaan right now.” 

Rey feels a little light-headed, has to look back over her shoulder at the house to make sure she’s not exaggerating its size. That whole place for  _ one person?  _ “Don’t you get lonely?” she asks, thinking of her nights in with Rose and Paige, the three of them nestled on the couch together. She would miss them terribly, even in their small apartment. 

Snorting, Ben sweeps the door open. “What kind of question is that?” 

It’s an obvious deflection, and suddenly Rey remembers his supposed string of lovers.  _ Oh,  _ she thinks with a twinge of sympathy.  _ You  _ are _ lonely.  _

All thoughts of Ben’s tumultuous life empty from her mind as Rey steps into the garage. Ben hadn’t been kidding when he’d assured her she had nothing to worry about; this place is probably better equipped than Jyn’s shop. It’s big enough to fit four or five cars in side by side. Right now, there’s only one: the Falcon sits directly in the middle. Off to the far side, there’s a hydraulic lift, and Rey would bet money it doesn’t creak like Jyn’s. Rows of toolboxes line a low table along the back wall, stainless steel, state-of-the-art. It’s a mechanic’s paradise. 

Ben pushes a button and the whole front of the building rolls up, letting in a flood of natural light. 

“I think I love your dad a little bit,” Rey breathes. She misses Ben’s grimace as she makes her way over to the Falcon, circling around it intently and looking for a sign that one of her fixes didn’t hold. “This is the Falcon, right?” she asks when she’s satisfied everything’s okay. 

Ben doesn’t seem at all surprised that she knows. He nods. 

Rey digs an elastic out of her pocket, snaps it around her wrist, and starts pulling her hair back into a ponytail. “Okay,” she says, wrapping the elastic around her hair, “I’m going to have a really good, long look at this car and get you that list of supplies. Then I’m going to wash it because honestly, Ben, has it even seen a hose in the past few years?” Ben shakes his head, and she purses her lips. “Anyway. That’s probably about all I can do until I get the parts. Sound good?” 

“Sounds good,” Ben agrees. “I’m going back to sleep. Text me if you need anything.” 

Already lost in the Falcon, Rey just nods to acknowledge that she’s heard him. She cracks the hood, smiles down at the innards, and says, “Alright. Time to see what we can do with you.” 

Hours blur away as Rey crawls in, around, and under the Falcon. She comes to know every part of it, what’s working, what needs to be fixed, and what she wants to add to it. An image slowly takes shape in her head, an updated version of the car Han Solo had been so proud to own. She quickly fills one page of her small notebook, two, three, with everything she thinks she’ll need. When she’s ready to wash it, she pulls the car out of the garage and parks it in the driveway. 

Rey is just hauling out the hose, which she’d found attached to an exterior faucet near the garage’s entrance, when she notices Ben heading for her. He looks more polished than he had that morning with his tamed hair and actual clothes. For one short second, Rey’s breath hitches in her chest. “Need any help?” he asks as he approaches. 

Surprised at the offer, Rey pauses with her armful of hose. “I think I can  _ probably  _ handle washing a car by myself,” she teases, softening the words with a smile, “but I’m not going to say no to an extra pair of hands.”  _ Especially when they’re attached to you.  _ Clearing her throat, Rey suddenly gets very focused on making sure the hose is free of kinks. 

Nodding, Ben grabs a bucket, some soap, and a couple of sponges from the cabinets under the table.

Rey remembers her list as the water burbles into the bucket, coaxing bubbles from the soap. “Here,” she says, offering him the sheaf of papers. “My requirements. I made them as specific as possible so you don’t have to guess on anything.” 

Ben scans over the list but his face stays perfectly blank, and Rey guesses he doesn’t recognize half the things on it. “Okay,” he says and tucks it under one of the toolboxes to keep it from getting wet. “I’ll let you know when I get them in.” 

When the bucket is full, Rey shuts off the hose and picks up a sponge, going at the battered car with grim determination. There’s a layer of grime from years of neglect, and Rey feels her heart lighten a little as she coaxes out a long-lost gleam. She hums as she works, the Beatles’ “Drive My Car” because it seems appropriate. Gradually, she becomes aware that Ben is watching her with an amused smirk, and she stops humming. “What?” she asks. “I’m having  _ fun _ , is that a crime?” 

“No.” He rests his arms on the top of the car, sponge still in one hand. “You’re real cute, you know that?” he asks, and Rey feels herself flush.  

She ducks down to scrub at the wheel wells, grateful to be out from under his gaze.  _ Why does he have to say things like that? Why do I have to like it so much?  _ The rust is stubborn, but it starts to break apart under her attentions. She’s concentrating too hard to keep humming, but she perks up when Ben breaks the silence. 

“I used to do this with my dad,” he says. “When I was a kid. He didn’t like me touching the Falcon most of the time, but this was the one thing he’d let me help with. I guess he figured I couldn’t manage to screw up something as simple as washing a car.” 

There’s a bitter edge to his voice that has Rey biting her lip, but she doesn’t say anything. Her curiosity is piqued, and she doesn’t want to risk ruining the moment. 

Ben sighs and drops his sponge back into the bucket. “It’s fucking hot out here,” he grumbles. 

A little disappointed that her brief glimpse into Ben’s childhood has ended so early, Rey finishes cleaning off the last wheel and gets to her feet. “It is,” she agrees. She’s managed to work up a bit of a sweat now that she’s moved outside the garage. 

It’s been worth it, though. The Falcon shines like new, sparkling in the blazing afternoon sun.

“You know what else my dad and I used to do?” Ben asks slyly, pulling Rey from her haze of admiration. 

She turns to ask what when a stream of water blasts her in the stomach. She shrieks more in surprise than anything else, but the cold water is shocking. It’s gone as suddenly as it came, and she’s left spluttering at Ben. 

He holds the dripping hose in his hands, eyes gleaming mischievously. “It’s the fastest way to cool down, I’ve found.”

“Oh, yeah, it’s really effective,” Rey says, rubbing at her goose-pimpled arms. The shade of the garage feels a lot cooler now that she’s dripping wet. “Hand that over. I’d love to return the favor.” 

“I’m okay, thanks,” Ben says, already starting to wind the hose back up. 

Rey takes a threatening step towards him. “If you don’t give it to me,” she says, “you’re going to wish it was only the hose.” She eyes the bucket of dirty, soapy water sitting beside the Falcon meaningfully. 

Ben pauses, half the hose looped over his shoulder, eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t.” 

Rey doesn’t reply beyond lifting her eyebrows. 

“You would,” Ben says. She still says nothing and with a sigh, he straightens out the hose and offers it to her. “I guess I probably deserve this too.” 

“Why, yes,” Rey says sweetly, taking careful aim. “Yes, you do.” 

-

Ben offers to drive her home, but Rey is still cautious of using the car with a broken block spring and declines. Taxis don’t run through Ben’s neighborhood, so she calls a service and waits at the end of the long drive, clothes slightly damp. She’d towelled off as best she could, but denim does a very good job of retaining water. The drive home is a little uncomfortable since her butt is damp, but the look on Ben’s face when she’d blasted him in it had been worth it. 

If she’d thought working on the Falcon would somehow help get Ben out of her head, she’d been very, very wrong. He’s all she thinks about nearly the whole way home. That enormous house he stayed in by himself, that flash of hurt when he’d mentioned his father, that strange ease he seemed to have around her. If she didn’t know any better, she never would have guessed he was a prince from the way he behaved. 

Rey presses her forehead against the window and sighs. “Strange ease” as if the whole of it wasn’t strange. She’d somehow managed to get herself tangled up with royalty, or at least royalty’s car. She wonders how long she’ll be able to pretend it’s just the Falcon that interests her. 

Home, at least, is comforting in its familiarity. Rose is sprawled on the couch paging through a book, and Paige is sorting through the mail when Rey walks in. 

“Oh, hey,” Paige says, holding up one envelope as Rose’s head pops up. “It’s an invitation for my high school reunion.” 

“We should go,” Rose says, waving at Rey as she passes to drop her stuff off in her room. 

Paige blinks at Rose, taken aback. “ _ We _ should?” 

“Yeah.” Rose closes her book and smiles widely. “Might not be my class, but it was still my school. Besides, I want to show off my big sister with her fancy job.”  

Paige rolls her eyes. “You just want to see if we’re doing better than everyone else,” she says. 

Rose shrugs unapologetically. “Isn’t that why everyone goes to those things? Where is it, anyways?” 

Paige scans the invitation again. “Syracuse.”

“That’s not too far,” Rey says. “You could go, spend the night there, and come back the next day. If you wanted to.” She dumps leftover spanish rice on a plate and sticks it in the microwave. 

Humming, Paige checks the date against her calendar. “There’s nothing big going on that weekend,” she says. 

“So, we’re going?” Rose asks with a hint of excitement. 

“Sure,” Paige agrees. “There’s got to be a cheap hotel or two around.” 

Rey starts in on the rice, watching the two of them making their plans. It’s hard for her to understand their enthusiasm; high school had been hell for her. She’d hopped from one to the other with each new foster family, never stationary enough to be more than middling in her grades or casual with her friends. 

As Paige and Rose start to speculate about what their old friends might be up to, Rey dumps her plate in the dishwasher and retreats behind her curtains. Any friends she’d managed to make had only lasted as long as she’d been at the school. A few had promised to try and keep in touch, but it had never happened. Rey doesn’t mind it now that she has Finn, and Rose, and Paige, and Jyn, but back then, it had seemed like she would always be on her own. 

Eventually, Rose and Paige seem to have the details worked out and there’s a brief bout of silence. It’s broken when Rose calls across the room, “Hey, Rey, did you know you and Prince Solo have the same jacket?” 

“What?” Rey pushes out into the living room, utterly confused. 

Rose picks up a tabloid paper from the stack of mail and tosses it over to her. “Looks like the hoodie you were wearing the other day.” 

Rey’s blood runs cold as she looks at the article. It’s fairly short and tucked a few pages back, but the headline “Solo but Never Alone” blazes out at her. Below it is a picture of Ben in his familiar hoodie, the one she’d returned just that morning. He’s squeezed up in a doorway with a girl -- blonde this time; maybe he doesn’t have a type after all -- one arm around her waist, their lips locked together. The location looks familiar, and it only takes Rey a second to realize that it’s right next to the cornerstore she’d found him in. Barely a block from where she now stands. 

A shudder ripples down her spine. This could so easily have been her. All it would have taken was one stray click of a camera lens to capture the image of her swathed in Ben’s hoodie, the two of them staring at each other on the sidewalk, and  _ she  _ would have been “the Playboy Prince’s latest conquest.” The thought makes her a bit sick. 

Rose is staring at her expectantly, but her mouth turns down into a frown at Rey’s expression. “Are you okay?” she asks. 

“Yeah, I guess we do have the same jacket,” Rey says, trying to sound casual. She flips the paper closed and leaves it on the coffee table with a single shake of her head. “I can’t believe that even counts as news.” 

Paige shrugs. “People like to get into other people’s business,” she says pragmatically. “Especially if those other people are super rich.” 

Rey hums. She makes a mental note to be more careful about things from now on. She doesn’t even want to imagine the kind of headline she’d earn if someone saw her walking up to Ben’s house. 

Later that night, she finds herself unable to sleep. Every time she closes her eyes, the newspaper article jumps out at her. It keeps picking at her, makes her feel a bit paranoid. She reaches for her phone and finds Ben in her contacts. Professional, she’d said, but this has something to do with her job. Sort of.  

_ you’re in the paper _

Ben responds almost immediately. 

**_that’s not unusual_ **

_ there was a pic of you and some girl. there’s not gonna be a pic of me walking up to your house tomorrow is there? cause i could really do without that   _

**_probably not. not many people know about this place. consider yourself lucky_ **

_ yeah, right  _

Feeling marginally more assured, Rey switches her phone off and finally manages to sleep. 

-

The next few days are surprisingly empty. Rey doesn’t have anything more to do with the Falcon until the parts come in, and Jyn has already recruited Cassian to fill her space in the garage. She drops by during lunch hour to hang out with Finn, but besides that, she has no obligations. It drives her a little crazy, not working, but Ben’s payments for the Falcon are more than taking care of things. Rose fills out job applications, and Rey takes to wandering the neighborhood looking for other possible opportunities. There isn’t much out there; most of what Rey manages to find are part-time gigs at best. 

_ “Someone  _ has to need an electrical engineer, right?” Rose asks after another fruitless search. 

Rey slides her arms around her shoulders in a loose hug. “You’ll find something,” she promises. 

Every time she gets a text, she rushes to her phone, hoping to see something from Ben. It’s only because she doesn’t do well with being idle, she tells herself. It has nothing to do with the man himself. That doesn’t change the fact that she has to bite back disappointment when it winds up being someone else. 

The warm weather holds into the weekend, and Rey, Rose, and Paige take full advantage of it. When they’d first moved in, they’d bought lounge chairs and hauled them up to the roof where they still sit, albeit a little more weather-beaten. All three of them are stretched out in their swimsuits enjoying the sun when Rey receives the long-awaited text. 

**_some of your stuff is in_ **

Rey doesn’t realize she’s grinning at her phone until Rose’s voice breaks in on her thoughts. 

“What’s going on with you lately?” she asks. 

Rey rolls onto her back and levers herself up on her elbows. “What do you mean?” 

Rose pushes her sunglasses to the top of her head so she can see Rey better. “Seriously? You’ve jumped for your phone every time it so much as dings, like you’re expecting something. And you haven’t been going into the shop. So, what’s up?” 

Paige pokes her head up, curiosity stamped on her features. 

Rey curls her phone close to her chest so they can’t catch a glimpse of the screen. “I’ve been doing some work off-site, that’s all,” she says. “The car’s too valuable to keep at the shop, but I had to order some parts for it. Been waiting for them to come in.” She waits with bated breath, but Rose and Paige seem to accept the explanation. She sighs when they recline again; she hates having to lie to them, but there’s no way she can tell them about Ben. 

_ i’ll be over tomorrow morning,  _ she replies when she’s sure Rose and Paige aren’t paying attention to her. 

**_please god not at 8 again_ **

_ okay, how about 9-ish?  _

**_how about 11-ish?_ **

_ 9 it is _

**_ugh_ **

-

At exactly 9 o’clock the next morning, Rey’s taxi is pulling up to the keypad. Despite Ben’s earlier reassurances, she can’t help but peek into the trees to see if someone is hiding amongst them, camera at the ready. When she doesn’t see anyone, she gets out, keys in the code, and starts the long walk up to his house. 

He’s waiting for her this time, leaning against one of the doorways, a mug of coffee in his hands. He looks much as he did the first day, with his robe and mussed hair. A sleepy smile spills slow like oil over his face as she approaches. “Hey,” he says. 

Caught off-guard by how damn  _ soft  _ he looks, Rey’s tongue trips over itself. “G-good morning,” she says. “I wasn’t really expecting you to be up.” From his texts, she would have thought he’d stayed holed up in bed the first few hours she was there, if he ever came down at all.

Ben scrubs a hand over his face. “I didn’t want to be,” he groans, “but I have enough boxes here to practically rebuild the damn car. Wasn’t going to leave you to haul them all to the garage by yourself.” 

“Such a gentleman.” Rey’s tone is light and teasing, but she can’t keep an undercurrent of excitement out of it. She’s been itching to get back to the Falcon. 

Seeming to sense her impatience, Ben shuffles back into the house. He sets his mug down and hefts one of the boxes into his arms. “Careful, they’re pretty heavy,” he warns.  

Rey follows his lead, scooping one up effortlessly. “I can handle it,” she says with a smug smile.

The garage door is already open, so they deposit the boxes next to the car and head back for the next round. Another trip finishes them off, and Rey starts ripping into them like they’re Christmas presents. Ben walks back towards the house, and she’s surprised when he returns with his mug. 

“So, what’s all this for?” he asks, gesturing to the mess of cardboard and car parts. 

Rey tilts her head to the side. “Are you actually interested or…?” 

Ben sighs and runs a hand through his hair, ruffling it up further. “I’m too awake to go back to sleep, and there’s nothing else to do.” He lapses into silence as he takes another sip of his coffee. 

“Okay, well, most of this is for the front suspension,” Rey says. “You were kind of right when you said there was enough to rebuild the whole car; I’m replacing the whole system. The only thing that isn’t,” and she pauses to fish out a long, metal rod upturned at both ends, “is this sway bar. That goes in the back.” She frowns for a second, takes a second look through the boxes. “I’m missing some stuff,” she finally says, glancing up at him. 

“Yeah.” Ben inclines his head. “Some things were out of stock until a couple days ago. They should be here soon.”  

“Great,” Rey says. She turns to what she does have, mentally making a list of what she’ll need before she starts raiding the toolboxes. As she thinks, she tugs her iPod and earbuds from one pocket. These sorts of jobs go better with a soundtrack. 

“I have a dock for that,” Ben says, pulling Rey from her thoughts. “So you don’t have to use headphones. Want me to go get it?” 

Rey is about to tell him not to worry about it when she realizes that means she won’t have to worry about getting the wires tangled up in everything. “That’d be nice, thanks.” 

Waving away her thanks, Ben disappears back towards the house. 

It only takes him a few minutes to fetch it, but Rey is already holed up under the car when he does, parts and tools scattered haphazardly on the floor. “iPod’s on the counter!” she calls. “Put something on.”

Ben flicks through her library, face growing more and more dismayed as he goes along. “Rey,” he says, “your taste in music is crap.” 

“Fuck you,” Rey fires back instantly. “Cher and ABBA are musical geniuses.” She hears Ben snort, and then he must have found something he can stand because the first strains of music start to filter out. Unthinkingly, Rey sings along to the lyrics, blushing a little when she realizes their relevance. 

_ Need you so much somehow  _ __   
_ I can’t forget you _ _   
_ __ Goin’ crazy since the moment I met you

She stops singing after that, tongue poking out of the side of her mouth in concentration. With all the rust in the wheel wells, it doesn’t surprise her that it’s taken over the undercarriage as well, but she hadn’t considered how hard that would make it to replace the shocks. She squirms around on her Creeper, straining to get enough leverage to loosen the nuts and bolts that seem hopelessly stuck. “Come on,” she mutters under her breath. 

With a sharp crack, it finally gives, driving her knuckles straight into the ground. “Ow, shit!” She shakes her hand to relieve the sting, notices that one finger is covered in red. A jagged cut oozes blood, and she fights the urge to stick her finger in her mouth. 

The music abruptly cuts off. “What happened?” Ben asks, sounding genuinely concerned.

“Dammit, I think I got some blood on my shirt,” Rey says, examining it. It hadn’t exactly been spotless beforehand, but this was going to be a bitch to get out. 

“Um. Blood?” Ben bends down and tries to see under the car, eyes round with worry. 

Rey waves him off with her non-injured hand. “Yeah, I cut my finger on something. It’s fine.” 

“You should probably get a Band-Aid on that,” Ben says, not budging. 

Rey has reclaimed her grip on the wrench and is now successfully unscrewing the stubborn bolt. “In a sec. I’ve almost got this-” It finally comes loose and she pulls the worn out shock away with a hiss of triumph. She scoots out from under the car to scoop up the new one, but Ben’s foot descends on her Creeper, preventing her from moving. 

“Rey,” he says, “if that gets infected and they have to cut your hand off, I’m going to feel really guilty.” 

Huffing, Rey rolls her eyes at him. “You’re so dramatic. But fine. I’ll clean it off.” 

Ben kneels next to one of the cabinets and rummages around until he finds an old first aid kit. “I knew there was one here somewhere,” he mutters. He opens it up and digs out a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a couple cotton balls. “Give,” he says, gesturing to her hand. 

Rey sighs but extends her hand towards him. He takes it in his and gently cleans the blood, grime, and rust away from her cut. She sucks in a breath through her teeth as pain lances through her finger. Automatically, she tries to jerk away, but Ben’s hold on her wrist tightens, keeping her close. Very close, she suddenly realizes as he sets the cotton aside and opens a Band-Aid instead. She can feel the heat of his palm seeping into her skin and has to fight to suppress a shudder. 

“There,” he says when it’s firmly in place, thumb brushing lightly over her scraped knuckles. 

Rey can see the instant he registers their closeness too, the way his body stiffens, the barest hint of pressure as his hand tightens around hers. She glances up at him through her lashes, but his gaze is fixed firmly on their hands. “I should probably get back to work,” she says, her voice faint as if she’s forgotten how to speak. 

That seems to break the spell. The tension flows out of Ben’s shoulders, and he squeezes her hand more deliberately. “Meaning I should probably let go of you.”

_ No,  _ Rey wants to scream.  _ Pull me closer and hold me tight until neither of us remembers what it’s like to feel alone.  _ But Ben drops her hand, and Rey steps back to put even more distance between them. The intensity of her own desire scares her. Her mind whirls as she dives back under the car and attempts to immerse herself in installing the new shocks. It’s useless trying to tell herself she doesn’t want him; she has since the first time she’d laid eyes on him, and it’s only getting worse the more time she spends around him.  

-

Her time spent working on the Falcon becomes a harrowing test of self-control. Ben doesn’t just stick around that first day, he’s a near-constant presence in the garage, asking what she’s doing, why she’s doing it. Eventually, she tells him that if he’s going to take up space, he might at least make himself useful. So he takes to passing her tools or holding a flashlight right where she needs it. 

She tries not to talk to him much. It’s tempting to, especially with how much time they spend with just the two of them, but it isn’t worth the effort to get to know him. They live in separate worlds brought together for a brief time only through necessity. As soon as the Falcon is done, they’re done. She could still try, she supposes. Make an effort. Ask him about the superficial, drop a hint or two about her own life, but that would only make it that much harder to leave when she has to. So she keeps her mouth shut unless she’s lecturing him about what this or that part does, where to stand, how to hold the flashlight just so. 

Resolve can’t stop all her attraction, however. Rey savors every time their fingers brush together or her shoulder bumps his as he stands next to her with the light. She’s all too aware of his presence and grateful that she spends most of her time with her head stuck under the car or in the engine so he can’t see every time her cheeks heat up.

Despite the distraction, Rey makes good work on the car. After she gets past the initial rust, replacing the rest of the front suspension doesn’t prove too difficult. She moves onto more cosmetic issues after that because if she’s going to fix this car up, she’s going to fix it up right. She sandblasts the control arms, both front and rear, and replaces the well-worn bushings while she’s at it. The inner fenders get a similar treatment, the creeping rust relegated to the past. 

Only after she strips the rust does she discover the frame underneath it is caked in near-fossilized dirt, and she sighs. Ben earns another lecture for that one, for letting things get so bad for so long. It takes her an entire day to wire-wheel the whole thing, and at the end, she emerges covered in a fine layer of dust and coughing. 

Ben takes one look at her and offers her the use of his shower. 

Rey swipes her arm across her forehead, dirt and sweat mixing to create a less-than-appealing paste. Grimacing, she accepts. She hesitates in front of the doorway, that sensation of being out of place back in full force. The interior, what little of it she can see, looks spotless. And she most certainly is not.

When Ben realizes she isn’t with him, he turns, brow furrowed when he finds her lingering in the doorway. “Rey?” 

“Maybe you should just hose me off again,” she says, folding her arms over her chest and keeping her tone light. 

Ben snorts. “Shower’s warmer.” 

Rey chews at her bottom lip and gestures to her filthy arms. “But the hose is outside,” she points out. 

Rolling his eyes, Ben walks back over to her. “You worry too much.” With that, he takes both her hands in his and pulls her into the house. He lifts his eyebrows, walking backwards as he tugs her further inside. “See? Everything’s fine.” 

And he’s right. The house doesn’t collapse around them, no one jumps out to point out that she shouldn’t be there; it’s just her and Ben. They pause in the entranceway to take off their shoes, and Ben drops her hands. Rey trails him through the house, so preoccupied trying not to touch anything that her surroundings don’t register until they get to the bathroom. Her jaw drops. 

It’s easily half the size of their apartment with both a tub and a shower. The shower is glass-doored and plenty big enough to fit three or four people at once. There’s no way this isn’t the master bathroom. She refuses to believe it. Which means they’d just walked straight through his bedroom, and she hadn’t even noticed.  _ Good going, Rey.  _ Resolved to pay much closer attention on the way back out, Rey stares hungrily at the shower. Her skin itches.

“Towels,” Ben says, gesturing to the inlaid section of the wall where a stack of towels sit waiting. “There’s body wash in there already, but I probably have bar soap around here somewhere if you want it.” 

“No, that’s fine,” Rey says, finally turning her gaze back on Ben. She never thought she’d call a bathroom extravagant, but if one ever was… It’s then that a thought occurs to her. “Um. This is probably a long shot, but do you have, like, any other clothes that might fit me? These are pretty…” She plucks at her shirt and a cloud of dust billows up around her. 

Ben laughs. “If you leave them outside the door, I’ll have them washed.” At her nod, he leaves her alone. 

Slowly, Rey peels off her grimy clothes. She bundles them up, inches the door open a crack, and shoves them outside without thinking. She’s halfway into the shower when she realizes she has stuck both her bra and her panties practically in Ben’s face, and her own flames red. It’s too late now; Ben seeing her underwear would be nothing compared to Ben seeing her naked trying to retrieve her underwear if he’s already out there. 

Shoving thoughts of Ben trying to figure out how to wash a bra aside, Rey turns on the shower. It’s heavenly. The water pressure is perfect, and Rey finds herself lingering long after she’s clean. When the hot water edges toward lukewarm, she reluctantly shuts it off and steps out. She bundles herself up in a delightfully fluffy towel, cracking the door open to find that her clothes are gone and the room beyond is blessedly empty. 

The room beyond. Ben’s bedroom. Rey’s enthusiasm at getting to peek at the prince’s personal space quickly fades. There isn’t much there, nothing up on the walls, no tacky furniture, not even an odd knick-knack on top of the dresser. It looks more like a hotel room than anything else: functional, sparse. Impersonal. 

The only sign that someone even lives there is Ben’s robe laid out for her on the bed. She doesn’t recognize the checked pattern, which means it’s not one she’s seen before, and she has to wonder how many robes he owns.

It’s far too big for her, but she wraps herself up in it anyways, burrowing into the cinnamon-smell she’d so missed. She knows where it comes from now; she’d opened his body wash and nearly been overwhelmed by the scent. Her hands disappear into the robe’s sleeves, it bunches up around her shoulders, she has to wrap the belt twice around her waist to hold it up, and she suspects she looks a little ridiculous in it. A glance at the floor-length mirror confirms that. She glides out of the room, the robe brushing the ground as she walks. 

Now that she’s no longer worried about shedding dirt everywhere, she can actually appreciate the house. It’s massive, the ceilings sweeping up far above her head, each room seemingly bigger than the last. She’s almost worried about getting lost. 

Clutching the robe to her chest, Rey practically tiptoes through the bedroom and out into the hallway. “Ben?” she whisper-yells. Without him, the idea that she’s intruding in a place she doesn’t belong seems more plausible. “Ben?” 

“God, you’re tiny.” 

At the sound of his voice, Rey whirls around. The robe flaps out behind her, tangling up around her feet. “I’m tall for a woman, thank you very much.” The effect of her protest is somewhat lessened by the fact that she has to struggle to free herself from the folds of fabric. 

Ben steps closer to her, putting his hand to his forehead and then gliding it into the empty space over Rey’s head. She has to crane her head back to glare at him. “Sure,” he says with a familiar smirk. 

“Just because you’re freakishly tall doesn’t make me short,” Rey grumbles. He’s deliciously close again, and she hates the way she wants to lean into him. She takes a deep breath but it doesn’t help much, not when she’s wearing his clothes and the scent of cinnamon fills her nose. She sways forward just the tiniest bit when a loud buzzer goes off, startling her.

“Your clothes are done,” Ben says, disappearing into the room he’d come from. 

Rey shakes her head violently and tells herself to get a grip. She’s acting like a lovesick teenager, and she’s better than that now. She’s 20. If Ben had noticed her brief lapse of control, he gives no sign of it, just hands her clothes over and is polite enough not to mention the way she clutches them to her chest and scuttles off like a goblin. 

Safely back in the bathroom, Rey slumps against the door. Maybe she should tell him she can’t work on the Falcon anymore, that Jyn or Finn can take over where she’s left off. Or maybe she should tell him to kiss her, just once, and she’ll be satisfied with that and stop acting so strange. Of course, she doesn’t say either of those things. Instead, she changes into her clothes, hands Ben back his robe, and comes back the next morning without a word about it. 

-

Rey sits cross-legged on the hood of the Falcon waiting for the coat of primer she’s slathered over the whole undercarriage to dry. The wire-wheeling had scratched what little had remained of the old paint right off, and now she was setting it right. A can of dark paint sits on the workbench ready to be applied as soon as the primer sets. Ben is nearby, propped against the wall and leafing through the owner’s manual. Neither of them speak; the only sounds are the birds twittering around outside. 

More than once, Rey finds her eyes sliding over to watch Ben as he flicks through the pages. She doesn’t think he notices, too absorbed in whatever he’s reading about to catch her. Every so often a small divot appears between his brows, and Rey knows she’s fucked because it’s more endearing than it should be. The silence is shattered when Rey’s phone rings. Startled, she tugs it out of her pocket and answers without looking to see who’s calling. “Hello?” 

“Hey, Rey,” Finn says, and she instantly feels a little warmer. She’s missed seeing him around the shop. 

“Hey,” she replies brightly, uncrossing one leg and propping her foot up so she can rest her elbow on her knee. “What’s up?” 

She can practically hear Finn shrugging. “Just wanted to check up on you, see how things were going with the Falcon.” 

Rey caresses the car. Even now, it’s hard for her to believe that she gets the chance to work on something so iconic. “Really good, actually,” she says. “It barely looks like the same car, and it’s going to look even better when I’m finished.” 

“You’ll have to send me pictures,” Finn says, and he sounds wistful. 

“I will,” Rey promises. 

Finn’s quiet for a beat before he clears his throat and asks, “How’s that prince guy? He’s not giving you any trouble, is he?” 

Rey shakes her head before she remembers he can’t see her. “No,” she says aloud. Her eyes slide to where Ben is studiously bent over the manual. She knows he’s listening by how hard he’s trying to look like he’s not. “He’s been helping me, actually. With the small stuff.” 

Ben gives up all pretense, then, staring at her openly. 

“Really?” Finn asks. “I wouldn’t have expected that.” 

“Trust me, I was as surprised as you.” Ben rolls his eyes, and Rey grins back at him. “Enough about me, though. How are things at the shop?” 

Finn sighs. “Same as usual. Jyn and Cassian are great, but they aren’t you.” His voice gentles a little. “I miss you.” 

A warm glow fizzes through Rey. “I miss you too,” she says. 

“Any idea when you’re coming back?” Finn asks. 

Rey bites her lip, eyes narrowed as she mentally tallies up how many things she still has to do. But her mind is a scattered mess, and she’s missing parts, and she’s never been a good judge of her own capabilities. “I don’t know,” she says eventually. “But you’ll be the first to know when I am, I promise.” 

There’s the sound of an engine turning over in the background, then a loud bang and an equally loud curse. “I better go,” Finn says. “We’ve got a stubborn one today. Jyn’s getting worked up.” 

“Okay,” Rey says. “See you soon?” 

“I hope so.” Then Finn is gone, replaced by dead air. 

Rey hangs up, slips the phone back in her pocket, and slides off the hood to stretch her back. It’s taken to twinging with how much time she’s spent under the car. For the first time, she understands why Jyn prefers to spend her time in the office.  

Ben flips the manual closed and tosses it onto the counter. “Who was that?” 

“Finn,” Rey says, her fingertips reaching for the roof, balanced on the tips of her toes. “The guy you met in the shop.” 

“Ah,” Ben says, and she can’t discern anything from his tone. “Your mechanic boyfriend.” 

A laugh bursts unbidden from Rey’s lips, and she drops back flat-footed. “He’s not my boyfriend,” she says, swinging around to face Ben. 

Ben raises an eyebrow skeptically. “No?” 

“No,” Rey confirms with a firm shake of her head. “He’s a good friend, though. Nice. Which you would have known if you’d bothered talking to him.” She can’t resist the jibe, still unsure as to why Ben had been so standoffish around Finn. It didn’t have anything to do with the relationship he’d apparently been imagining between them… did it? 

Ben gives her an appraising look before bending down to stare at the undercarriage. “I think the primer’s done.” 

Things change after that, or it might just be Rey’s imagination. Did Ben’s hand linger a little longer when they brushed together as he handed her a wrench? Were his eyes skittering away because she’d caught him staring? Was he glancing at her lips more than usual? Or did she just  _ want  _ him to be? 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> earning that rating this chapter lol 
> 
> this was my first real attempt at m/f smut, so please let me know what you think! i'm open to concrit 
> 
> (also this is the chapter with the mentions of child abuse so if you can't jive with that, be careful with the after-smut stuff)

Paige and Rose shoulder their backpacks as Rey watches them, nursing a cup of coffee. It’s not even that early, but she’s gotten into the habit of waking up late so she doesn’t show up at Ben’s too early. “Underwear?” she asks. 

“Check,” Rose says. 

“Pajamas?” 

Paige this time. “Check.” 

“Toothbrushes?” 

Rose pauses, has to dig around in her pack a little bit before she pulls out their kit bag and double checks. “Got them,” she says and quickly repacks everything. 

Rey sets her mug down. “Sounds like you’re all set to leave me, then,” she says with a pathetic sniffle. 

Rose throws her arms around her neck. “It’s only for a day,” she says. 

“We’ll be back tomorrow,” Paige promises, stepping in to hug Rey as soon as Rose releases her. “Probably late afternoon sometime.” 

“Have fun reliving high school,” Rey says as Paige moves away. 

Rose crinkles her nose. “Ew, no. This is a celebration about not being in high school anymore,” she says. 

Rey is about to contradict her when her phone buzzes. Her heart flutters a little when she sees it’s Ben, the way it always does these days. 

**_finally got the spring_ **

_ great! I’ll be over in a bit _

**_looking forward to it_ **

“It’s good for you,” Rose says, breaking Rey away from her phone screen. 

“Hmm?” She looks up and forces herself to set it on the counter. “What is?” 

Rose nods toward the phone. “Whatever’s on the other end of that.” 

“It’s true,” Paige breaks in. “You smile a lot more these days.” 

Rey feels herself flushing, which is probably the most damning thing she could have done. “I do not,” she protests, feebly attempting to hide her blush behind her mug. 

Rose snorts. “There’s nothing wrong with being happy,” she says. 

Rey just hums. There is when the reason for it is as untouchable as a prince. She still hasn’t told them about the owner of her mysterious project, though, so she keeps her mouth shut as she waves them out the door. 

Soon, Rey is left alone with half a mug of coffee that’s rapidly getting cooler and a steadfast refusal to admit that anything but the Falcon is responsible for her newfound happiness. She dumps the rest of it down the drain and texts Ben to let him know she’s on her way. 

“Late start?” Ben asks by way of greeting. He’s up and fully dressed, a sure sign that Rey has arrived later than usual. 

Rey waves away his teasing. “Had to say goodbye to my roommates,” she says. Ben falls into step beside her as they head towards the garage. “They’re spending the night away for their high school reunion.” 

Ben hums. “I always wondered what high school would be like,” he muses. 

Rey glances sideways at him. “You didn’t go?” she asks. It’s a personal question, one she wouldn’t normally ask given the relative distance she’s trying to keep between them. She bites her lip, but she can’t deny her curiosity.  

“Boarding school,” he says with a shrug. “The farther away I was, the easier I was to deal with, according to my parents.” Grimacing, he lengthens his stride until Rey is half-jogging to keep up with him. 

“You didn’t miss much,” she says. “I mostly remember not fitting in and bad cafeteria food.” 

Ben swings open the door for her and flashes her a charming smile. “Sounds a lot like boarding school.” 

One final box is waiting for them, the big block spring she’s been so looking forward to getting nestled inside. Rey quickly checks it over to make sure it’s not damaged, nodding in satisfaction when it’s not. “Of course,” she says, popping the hood, “now I have to take apart the engine again.” 

It takes her the better part of the day to get everything dismantled, put back in place, and reassembled again. It only takes her a few minutes work with the actual spring, but she gets lost in repainting the engine block, headers, and radiator. Letting herself get caught up in the inner workings of the car is so much easier than trying to puzzle out what she’s going to do about Ben. What she should do is nothing, but what she wants to do… well, that’s a little more complicated. When she finally snaps the hood shut, the sun is dipping towards the horizon and she’s no closer to figuring anything out. 

“Done,” she says, scrubbing her hands on her paint-flecked jeans. She’s ruined more than a few outfits over the course of her repairs; what’s one more?

Ben pushes himself away from the counter. “Does that mean she’s road-worthy?” he asks. 

Rey gives the car an appraising look. It’s a bit of a mess with all the sanding, scraping, and general grit she’s put into it, but the exterior isn’t as important as everything she’s done to its innards. “Should be,” she nods. 

Ben tugs the keys out of his pockets and twirls them around his finger before tossing them over to Rey. “Let’s take her for a spin, then.” 

Reflex has Rey snatching the keys from the air. She cradles them like something precious, gaze flipping between Ben and the Falcon. “Now?” 

The sun is already beginning to dip below the horizon; soon, it will be dark. 

“Now,” Ben says. “Unless you have something you need to be doing.” 

There’s nothing Rey would rather be doing at that moment then ripping up the roads. She tosses the keys, catches them, asks, “Are you seriously letting me drive?” 

“It’s your baby,” Ben says, already making for the passenger seat. “I call shotgun.” 

Barely able to contain her excitement, Rey slips into the driver’s seat. She fires it up and practically purrs along with the engine as she runs her fingers over the worn leather of the steering wheel. “Hell yeah,” she breathes. Her grip tightens around it, and she revs the engine a couple of times, grinning wickedly at Ben. 

He braces himself against the dashboard with one hand. “Should I be regretting this?” he asks. 

“Absolutely.” Rey knows better than to gun it out of the garage since they’ll have to stop at the gate anyways, but she itches to get it onto a long stretch of highway where she can really open it up. 

Once they’re out of the driveway, Rey heads south, towards the interstate. The Falcon is a joy to drive. She even forgets to be impatient, too caught up in the feeling of cruising around in a piece of history to care about how fast they aren’t going. For the first few miles, she forgets to feel for problems, but there don’t seem to be any when she starts looking for them. The engine sounds like it’s as eager as she is to run wild, and the ride is totally smooth. 

“Well, we haven’t blown up yet,” Ben says. “I’m going to take that as a good sign. Not that I thought we were going to blow up,” he adds quickly. 

Rey laughs and turns onto the interstate. “The  _ real  _ test is just starting.” So saying, she presses the pedal down further. 

Slowly, they start to gain speed, the tires eating up the pavement as Rey presses it further and further. Everything stays as it should. There are no shakes, rattles, or rolls to catch Rey’s attention. There isn’t anything but her, Ben, and a speedometer inching its way towards 90. She lets out a whoop of pure joy as they zip past a speed limit sign. 

Miles disappear one after another in gray-green and gold blurs as the dying sun shines through the trees. As darkness begins to encroach and the roads empty of traffic, Rey gives the Falcon a little more speed. Ben doesn’t say anything until they start edging into the low 100s. 

“Police exist, Rey,” he gently reminds her. 

Sighing, Rey reluctantly drops them back below the speed limit. “We should probably head back soon anyways.” She could go all night just like this, the Falcon responding eagerly to her every touch, the sense of reckless abandon she’d allowed herself to get swept up in. But it’s properly dark out by now, and she’s not alone. The thought of spending the night with Ben is probably the one thing that could distract her just then. She starts looking for a turnoff and takes the next exit they come to, a smaller one without much of a sign. 

“Any idea where we are?” Ben asks, peering out the window. 

“Not a clue,” Rey says. She’s never worried about getting lost when she’s driving; stick her behind a wheel, and she’ll always find her way back where she belongs. It was one of the reasons she’d become a mechanic in the first place. Nuts, bolts, and steering wheels gave her direction like nothing else. She makes a left off the exit, starts taking stock of road signs. It’s easy enough to navigate back to the interstate. 

They’re still a few miles from their exit when they pass a sign denoting a scenic view. Rey takes the turnoff, and Ben shifts in his seat. 

“This isn’t our exit,” he points out. 

Rey shrugs off his concern. “I know. I figure it’s as good a place as any to switch, though. You should get some time in behind the wheel, make sure you like how it drives. Since it  _ is  _ your car.”

Ben only hums and settles back into his seat. 

The turnoff opens into an empty dirt parking lot. The ground extends quite a few feet beyond the edge of the lot before plunging off into a cliff. The view is black on black at night, dark smudges of shadow that are probably breathtaking hills and valleys during the daytime. 

Rey shuts off the car and silence floods in. She’s gotten more used to silence since working on Ben’s estate, but not so much that she finds it peaceful. Right now, she finds it particularly acute, the only sounds that of her breathing and Ben’s. Abruptly, Rey shoves open her door. As she walks around to the passenger side, she glances up at the sky and stops in her tracks. “Woah.” 

“What?” Ben asks, unfolding himself from the passenger seat and stretching. 

“I forget how many stars there are sometimes,” Rey murmurs, her eyes filled with them. “I don’t... get out of the city much.” 

Ben comes to stand beside her, hands shoved deep in his pockets as he tilts his head back to look up at the sky too. “Doesn’t it make you feel small?” he asks. 

Rey hefts herself onto the hood of the Falcon and draws her knees up to her chin. She wraps her arms around her legs for balance so she can lean back further. “Yeah,” she says. “That’s what I love about it.” 

Ben’s eyebrows lift slightly with surprise. 

Rey notices it from the corner of her eye and laughs lightly. “It’s kind of reassuring,” she says. “No matter how badly I fuck up, it won’t matter in a few years. Every dumb thing I ever did just,” she cuts her hand through the air as if slicing them away, “gone.” 

Ben tilts his head, considering. “I could use some of that,” he says. 

They stay like that for a while longer, him standing, her perched on the hood, both of them gazing up at the stars. She’s comfortable in the silence, but all too aware of his presence beside her. Can’t help but wonder if he’s part of the reason the quiet doesn’t seem so terrifying anymore.

After a bit, Rey realizes Ben’s eyes have drifted to her instead of the sky. “What?” she asks. 

“You’re real cute, you know that?” he asks her for the second time.  

Rey’s brain-to-mouth filter glitches, and she says the same thing she’d thought the first time he’d asked. “Then why haven’t you kissed me yet?” She wants to bite back the words as soon as they’re out, but the best she can do is slap her hand over her mouth to stop herself from making it worse. 

Far from looking upset or even shocked, Ben just stares at her for a long minute with something like… relief? When he speaks, his voice is almost a groan. “I’ve been waiting so long to hear that.” He pulls her hand from her mouth, and she lets him because she’s too caught up on the fact that he wants to, that he’s been  _ waiting so long to hear- _

Then he’s planting his hands on the Chevy’s hood and he’s leaning in and his lips are on hers just like she’d thought about so many times. Except it’s not like she’d thought at all. She’d only felt phantom lips, hadn’t imagined the hard line of his body pressed against hers, the cinnamon-smell she’ll always think of as him, the way he steals the very breath from her lungs and gives her his in return. It’s an endless moment that ends too soon.

Ben draws back, and, embarrassingly, Rey chases after him for a split second. Blushing, she forces herself to let him break away. But he only settles his hands on her hips and tugs her forward a bit so he doesn’t have to lean half over the hood to get to her. 

Rey’s legs drift apart so he can stand between them, her knees squeezing around his waist. As their lips meet again, he reaches down to wrap her legs around him, one arm slipping around her. Rey hums as he slowly, carefully, lowers them down so she’s stretched out on the hood beneath him. She can feel the heat of him pressed against the juncture of her thighs, and she moans into his mouth, grinding up against him a little. 

Ben breaks the kiss, then, half-hunched over her. 

Rey doesn’t even mind so much that they’re not kissing anymore, not when she can card her fingers through his moonlit hair and watch the way the silver light shifts over it. Then, Ben’s mouth is skimming along her jaw and stopping at the shell of her ear. 

“I’m not fucking you on the hood of my dad’s car,” he whispers, and his low tone sends a delicious shiver down Rey’s spine. 

“Well,” she says, her voice a touch husky, “my roommates are gone for the night. And you haven’t had a chance to see my apartment yet.” His place is equally empty, she’s sure, but hers is closer, and she’s not in the mood for patience. Ben straightens up, and she misses the weight of him as soon as he’s gone. She doesn’t have much time to focus on the loss, though, as he lifts her effortlessly off the car and sets her on her feet. 

He slides his fingers into her pocket and retrieves the keys. “You’ll have to give me directions,” he says. 

“I can do that.” She hopes. Right now, she has to admit, her thoughts are a little scattered. She can feel the faint pressure of his mouth and hands on her even as she slips into the passenger seat. It’s quite the distraction. 

The time it takes them to get to her apartment does nothing to dampen the desire in Rey’s belly. She’s been shoving it down for weeks; now that’s it’s gotten some fuel, it’s insatiable. She manages to let Ben know where he’s supposed to be going, relieved that she’s no longer the one driving. If it were her behind the wheel, they would probably have crashed. 

Ben seems fairly composed on the surface, but when they’re about a block from her apartment, Rey lets her hand rest on his leg, halfway up his thigh.

She’s gratified to see the way his throat works as he swallows, a muscle in his jaw twitching. 

“If you want me to pay attention to the road,” he says, “rethink that.” 

Rey sinks her teeth into her bottom lip in a doomed attempt to hide a smile and pulls her hand back into her own lap. It’s insane to think that this is all real, that it’s all happening. She wonders if he knows that she’s fantasized about him, or if he would care if he did. She glances at him from the corner of her eye and decides she wouldn’t mind knowing he’d been thinking about her. 

It seems to take forever, but they do eventually pull up to Rey’s building. “Top floor,” Rey says, already dragging him towards the elevator. 

“Of course,” Ben mutters. “The furthest away.” 

As soon as the elevator doors close, Ben is cupping her face, capturing Rey’s lips in another dizzying kiss. She curls her fingers into his shirt and clings to him like a lifeline, like he’s the only thing keeping her upright. Given how weak her knees are, that might not be too far from the truth. 

The doors slide open with a soft ding, and the sound brings Rey back to herself enough to realize she needs to get out her keys. It takes her longer than usual to unlock the door with the way Ben is nuzzling into her neck, teeth scraping over sensitive skin. “You’re not making this easy,” she huffs as she finally gets the key in. 

Ben doesn’t pull away. “Good.” 

The lock clicks, and Rey doesn’t think she’s ever been so relieved to hear something in her life. With a sigh, she steps inside and practically hauls Ben in after her. There will be time to think about consequences later; for now, she’s going to live in the moment. 

Ben hadn’t seen her place, Rey had said, and while that was true, he doesn’t see much of it now either. Rey’s too busy trying to get Ben’s shirt off to give him a house tour. He’s too busy trying to get hers off to ask for one. By some miracle, they manage to make it to Rey’s sectioned-off corner of the room before doing anything untoward. 

Anticipation lights up every nerve in Rey’s body as the curtain falls closed behind them. It’s been a while since she’s slept with anyone, and every movement she makes feels clumsy. Instead of being eager, she’s anxious; instead of being seductive, she’s ridiculous. And she knows, she  _ knows,  _ she’s thinking too hard, and that’s making everything worse, but she can’t seem to shut her mind off. 

Until Ben catches her wrists in one hand and holds her chin in the other, forcing her to look at him. “Rey,” he says, one corner of his mouth tilted upwards, “relax.” He kisses the small furrow between her brows. “This is supposed to be fun.” 

Rey’s eyes flutter closed, and she nods.  _ Relax.  _ She tries to do just that, letting go of her tension in a long exhalation. Then his hands are on her shoulders, and he’s telling her to lie down, lie back, he’ll help her. As she allows herself to fall back onto the mattress, an image wells up in her mind. She stretches her foot out just as the girl in the sex tape had done and presses her heel against his crotch. “Do your worst,” she says in as sultry a tone as she can muster. 

Ben groans, looking genuinely pained. “I can’t believe you watched that,” he says. 

With a smile that’s more like a grimace, Rey drops her foot to rub it along the inside of his thigh instead. “Not all of it,” she says. “Pretty much just to that part.” Her foot stops just above his knee, toes digging into denim. “Sorry.” 

“You’re not the first person to have seen it,” Ben mutters. “But if there was one thing I could scrub from the internet…” He interrupts himself with a kiss that says he doesn’t want to talk about it, his fingers tugging at the clasp of Rey’s bra. 

She gets the hint, stripping it off and tossing it to the side as soon as he pulls far enough back to let her. 

He makes a slow exploration of her newly-bare skin, his fingers sweeping over her collarbone, between her breasts, over her ribs, and his lips follow in their wake. She can feel each kiss like a drop of hot wax, burning on her skin long after he’s moved on. It isn’t until now, when she has this intimacy, that she realizes how much she’s missed it. 

Yet there’s a newness to this, too. It isn’t the fast, desperate fuck she’d half-expected. Ben touches her like he means to memorize her. He presses a kiss right below her belly button, and the muscles in her abdomen clench in anticipation, but then he’s slinking back up her body to find her mouth again. His tongue traces across her lower lip, and she opens herself to him eagerly. 

The taste of him, sweet like cinnamon, lies heavy on her tongue, distracts her from what his hands are doing. Some part of her might register the pop of the button on her jeans or the slow sound of a zipper being undone, but she still feels a jolt of surprise when his fingers are suddenly  _ there.  _ They don’t stay long before he’s tugging at the waistband of her jeans and underwear both. 

Rey arches her hips up so he can get them off. They join her shirt on the floor, utterly forgotten. She shivers as Ben curves his hands around her thighs and slowly slides them upwards until he reaches her hips. Without a word, he tightens his grip and jerks her forward, sinking to his knees. Rey fights the temptation to snap her legs shut as he does. She stares at the ceiling so she doesn’t have to see him looking at her, a tinge of color to her cheeks.

Ben seems to notice her hesitance, and he pauses. “You okay? Because I can stop if you need me to.” 

“No,” Rey says quickly. God, she’ll die if he stops. “I mean, yes, I’m okay. I promise.” She forgets to be embarrassed with the first touch of his tongue. Her breath leaves her in a long, hiss as he drags it over her arousal, the air turning cold in the wake of his sudden heat. He laps at her again and again, and all the while, his fingernails scrape gently over the sensitive skin of her inner thighs, her hips, her stomach. Rey has heard of men tracing the alphabet, or numbers, or whatever the fuck, but whatever Ben is doing, she wants to beg him not to stop. 

She decides there’s no good reason that she shouldn’t. “Please,” she whispers. It’s barely audible, and she feels Ben still. Desperation floods through her; her hand finds his hair and pulls gently. “Please, please don’t stop.” She can practically feel his smirk as he gets back into it. 

His tongue laves over her clit, the wet heat enough to keep her on edge, but not to give her release. She tenses more with every stroke, mouth falling open in soft gasps. “Ben,” she moans pitifully in a bid for mercy. Her fingers scrape over his scalp as she tightens her grip on his hair. 

Seeming to take the hint, Ben stops just long enough to press a kiss to the junction of her thigh. Then, his tongue dips inside her, and she cries out; his thumb finds her clit, and she loses her voice entirely. Her mouth opens, but her mind is empty of everything but the feeling of him, and all she can do is plead silently.

Liquid fire ignites low in her stomach, is stoked with every slow push of his tongue, every brush of his thumb. It comes spilling out of her in a sudden rush, a stuttered cry tearing itself from her throat. Her back arches slightly, her heels dig into the broad expanse of Ben’s back, her whole body awash in waves of pleasure. She embraces it wholeheartedly, letting herself get lost in the bliss until it starts to blur at the edges, fade away. 

When she returns to herself, it’s to find Ben staring down at her with dark, hungry eyes. She realizes with a lurch that there’s a distinctly empty feeling where the liquid fire used to be, and all she wants is him inside her. “You,” she gasps, pushing herself onto her elbows with some effort, “have way too many clothes on.” 

Laughing, Ben gets to his feet. “Agreed.” He pulls off his shirt without preamble, and Rey’s eyebrows twitch upwards as she realizes he’s… well, fit as fuck is really the only way she can put it. 

His hands are already moving to his pants, but she rises to her knees and places her hands on his chest. It was one thing to feel him under his shirt. It’s another to actually trace a path down the hard line of muscle, skin to skin. 

Ben pauses at her touch, watching her intently. 

The intensity of his gaze both thrills and terrifies her. No one’s ever looked at the her quite that way before, and she’s not sure what to make of it. She falls back on what she does know, her hands slipping past the waistline of his pants and pushing. “You can take these off now.” 

As he steps out of them, Rey’s eyes are immediately drawn to his cock. It curves upward from a startlingly dark thatch of hair, just as big as it had appeared in the tape. Rey’s breath hisses in through her teeth. The last time she’d had sex suddenly seems much further away. She drapes her arms around Ben’s neck, pressing her chest against his as she leans in to kiss him, tries to take her mind off her nerves. Her hand wraps around his dick and she strokes him long and slow, how he’d licked her. He shudders underneath her. “Condom,” he mumbles against her lips. 

Rey reluctantly pulls back and tries to remember if she even has any. “One sec.” She moves across the bed until she can reach her dresser, yanking open the bottom drawer and rooting around under her clothes. Finally, mercifully, her fingers close around a cardboard box. She squints at the small text in the moonlight. 

“Want to hand those over?” Ben asks, hand outstretched expectantly.

“Just let me check the expiration date,” Rey murmurs, searching for it. 

That gives Ben pause. “How long has it been?” he asks. “Since you slept with someone?” 

Rey bites the inside of her cheek and stares steadfastly at the box. For some reason, it feels like a dangerous confession, like he’ll stop if she gives the wrong answer. For all that she’s a little jittery, she doesn’t want him to stop. “About a year,” she admits with a soft sigh. A month till they expire, and Rey finds herself breathing a sigh of relief. She tosses the box over. “We’re good.”  

Ben nods and pulls her in to kiss her again. It’s a reassurance, one he takes his time with. At the end of it, Rey’s head is spinning, and she wonders how he can take her apart with something as simple as a kiss. “I’ll be careful,” he promises.

Rey wraps an arm around his shoulders and drags him back down to the bed with her, that empty feeling yawning inside her. “But maybe not  _ too  _ careful,” she whispers. 

Ben’s low chuckle is lost in the curve of her neck. His hand skims down her body until it dips between her legs and he slips a finger inside her. 

It’s something, but not what her body really wants, and soon Rey is wiggling impatiently. 

“Rey,” Ben groans even as he adds a second finger. “What happened to slow?” 

“I know, I know. But  _ a year, _ ” she whines.

Ben inclines his head, conceding the point. He doesn’t wait long before making it three, and then his hand withdraws completely and is replaced with the blunt head of his cock.  

Rey lets her legs fall open a little wider, then Ben is pushing into her. This has always been Rey’s favorite part, the stretch as her body makes room for someone else, the anticipation of the whole night condensed into that single moment. It takes her a bit to adjust, but Ben keeps still until the furrow between her eyebrows disappears and she sighs, “Okay.” 

Rey gains a new appreciation for taking it slow. He fills her inch by inch, and she feels every second of it, her legs moving to wrap around his waist when he’s fully sheathed. 

“You good?” Ben asks, already breathless. 

“I will be once you start moving,” Rey pants. She shifts her hips to emphasize the point. 

Ben shakes his head, but the corners of his lips curve upward. “You’re bad at being patient.”

Huffing, Rey tilts her hips again, trying to move against him. “No, you’re just annoyingly good at it. Now, please, please-” she scrapes her nails along his spine, “-fuck me.” 

Rey has had boyfriends before, some of them even for a decent amount of time. But none of them have known her like Ben seems to know her. He knows what she wants even before she does, anticipating her every desire. His mouth, his hands, his cock, he gives all of himself to her. It’s overwhelming in the best way possible. 

She whispers his name over and over like it’s a prayer, when she has the fortitude to speak. Most of the time, it is all she can do to breathe, tighten her legs around his waist, and move with him. Half her pleasure is found in watching him come apart above her. The flicker of darkness in his eyes every time their gazes catch. The way his breath turns that much more ragged with every thrust. Her name falling half-broken from his lips. 

Rey doesn’t know how long they stay like that, connected, living, moving, and breathing as one, before the familiar wave of heat rises inside her again. This time, she fights against her release simply because she doesn't want this to end. It had seemed so infinite, and she resents the reminder that the outside world hasn’t actually changed. 

But Ben, intuitive as he is, can sense what’s building. His lips brush along her neck, and he murmurs quietly, “Let go, Rey.” 

Mouth stretched open in a wordless cry, Rey obeys. Her fingernails dig into Ben’s shoulders, her legs lock around his hips, and if she’d thought her first orgasm was as good as it got, she’d been very, very wrong. Ben fucks her through it, sending aftershocks sparking through her. She wraps one hand around the back of his neck and pulls him into a sloppy kiss, their mouths half-open as they try to catch their breath. 

Ben’s thrusts grow more erratic, and she can tell he’s close. Now that the blurry haze of pleasure is starting to fade, she can concentrate only on him, and she realizes she wants to. She wants to make this as good for him as it’s been for her. So she rolls her hips down, relishes the way his breath catches in his throat. “That’s it,” she purrs. “Come on, Ben.” 

He buries his face in her neck, snaps his hips against her, once, twice more, and then he’s spilling inside her with a quiet groan. 

Rey strokes her hands through his hair for as long as he’s still, content to hold him. 

Eventually, he pulls back to give her one last searing kiss before withdrawing and flopping back onto the mattress. 

Rey’s head lolls over on the pillow so she can keep watching him. For a while, they lie gazing at each other, a comfortable silence settled between them.  

Ben is the one to break it. He flips over onto his side and runs the backs of his fingers over her cheek. “What are you thinking about?” he murmurs. 

Rey doesn’t answer immediately, her eyes flickering closed to better appreciate the softness of his touch. “I’m thinking,” she says as she reopens them, “that I need to pee.” She throws back the covers and slips into her panties because it somehow doesn’t feel right to walk around completely naked. 

“ _ Very  _ sexy,” Ben says, a wry smile on his face. 

Rey adopts the same sultry tone she’d used earlier, glancing back at him over her shoulder. “You know what’s even sexier? UTIs.” 

Ben just snorts and lets himself settle back against the pillows. 

In the bathroom, Rey takes a minute to look at herself in the mirror, braced against the sink. She stares at her reflection and tries to determine if she’s gone insane. The night feels like something straight out of a dream. Some part of her wonders if she’s about to walk back into an empty room with nothing but fabricated memories. She lets out a long breath.  _ Well,  _ she thinks,  _ if I am, I might as well get it over with.  _ She squares her shoulders and steps back into what passes as her bedroom. 

Ben is exactly where she’d left him, though he’s disposed of the condom, and is surveying his surroundings with a slightly distressed expression. “This room of yours is barely even a room,” he says, attention fixed on Rey as soon as she walks in. “How do you stand having so little space?” 

“It’s cramped,” Rey agrees as she crawls onto the bed. “But I have good roommates, and the view is worth it. Look.” She prods him into a sitting position and gestures towards the window. 

It’s spectacular at night, like something out of another world. The roads are ribbons of gleaming light as cars speed along them. Thousands of glittering pinpricks, homes, businesses, all manner of buildings, coat the distance until they’re swallowed up by the vast blankness of the water. Yellow hums on the horizon as skyscrapers and penthouse apartments turn into shining beacons. 

Ben whistles, long and low. “Yeah, that’s something,” he murmurs. 

Rey finds herself looking not at the city before her but at the man beside her. The moonlight coats him in silver, softening his edges, and she could run her hands all over him again if she wasn’t so worn out already. A mark on his shoulder catches her eye, and she crowds into his space, climbing over him to settle into the gap between his legs. She leans against him, her back to his front, one arm draped along his thigh. 

He’s surprised for a second, but as soon as she stops moving, he wraps his arms loosely around her stomach. “Hi,” he says. 

“Hi,” she says back as his chin comes to rest atop her head. 

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” 

Rey traces patterns on his knee with one finger. “I wanted to ask you something and was hoping to soften you up with physical contact.” 

Ben laughs, and she feels the vibrations of it travel through her spine. “Alright, now I’m worried. What did you want to ask?” 

Rey twists a little until she can brush her hands over a puckered patch of skin on his shoulder. “How’d you get this?” She leans her head back against his unmarred shoulder so she can see his face. 

“That’s what you had to butter me up for?” Ben asks. “It’s not exactly a government secret.” 

That sticks at her for a second. It had been easy over the course of the past few weeks to forget that Ben was a prince sometimes. He was in line for an actual kingdom and everything that came with that. And here she was, cradled against his chest and feeling thoroughly fucked. “I know,” she says quietly. “But you don’t seem to like talking about yourself, so…” She trails off and lifts one shoulder in a shrug. She’s not thinking about all the times she hasn’t asked him what she’d wanted to know, but of the few times he’d laid out pieces of his past like the outline of a puzzle she’ll never see finished.  

Ben is quiet for long enough that Rey leans her head back again to check on him. He’s staring out the window, eyes narrowed slightly, lips pressed together, and a seed of panic blooms in Rey’s chest. The thought of him being upset with her makes her heart feel heavy. “Forget it,” she says and turns her gaze towards the window too. “It doesn’t matter.” 

“I was shot,” Ben says, and Rey stills. “When I was in the military. Every royal has to enlist for a while, it’s kind of a thing. My mom’s a general.” 

Rey thinks his voice gets a bit softer at that, but she doesn’t dare move. Another few pieces, a little closer to the whole picture. “So you were in a war?” she asks when he doesn’t continue. 

Snorting, Ben shakes his head. She can feel the movement, his hair brushing against the back of her neck. “I was 18 and an idiot is what I was. There was this girl in my company, Phasma. She was smart, and a bitch, and I really, really wanted to impress her.” He rubs at the back of his neck. “You know those people that do the fancy routines with the guns? The fake ones?” 

“You mean, like… rifle spinning?” Rey asks. She knows there are competitions for that kind of things, she’s seen YouTube videos, but she’s never heard of someone actually trying it. 

Ben nods. “I, um. I tried doing that. With a real gun. It went off when I was flipping it, and well…” He trails off, shrugging his scarred shoulder. “It did not end up being very impressive.”

Rey spins around, gaping at him. “You did  _ not  _ sling a gun around when it was loaded. You took the bullets out first, right? Why would you not take the bullets out.” 

Ben raises his hands. “The safety was on, but I probably accidentally turned it off at some point. And in my defense, I said I was an idiot,” he says. 

“Unbelievable,” Rey says, still open-mouthed with shock. 

Smiling sheepishly, Ben rubs at the old scar, as if talking about it has brought back the pain of its infliction. “It hurts like a bitch, by the way. Getting shot.” 

“No shit.” Now that she’s gotten over the initial shock of it, Rey is trying very, very hard not to laugh. She can just picture a gawky, teenaged Ben tossing a gun through the air to try and win over a girl. “Unbelievable,” she says again. 

Ben rests his forehead against the back of Rey’s neck and groans. “Can you see why I don’t like reliving my past now?” he asks. “It’s a mess. I was a mess.” A pause. “I’m still a mess.”  

Rey rests her hand over his where they’re still tangled around her waist and gives him a reassuring pat. “I don’t think you’re that bad,” she says. Frustrating, sometimes. Arrogant, often. Messy? A little, maybe, but she’s been the one warning herself not to get too close while inviting him back to her apartment. She has no room to talk.  

“Your turn,” Ben says, drawing back. “How’d you end up with this?” His fingers brush over a mark she’d almost forgotten she had, a tiny dark patch behind her right ear.

Rey never sees it, and neither does anyone else as her hair usually covers it up. Now, though, Ben has it swept back, his thumb brushing over it. “Curling iron,” she mumbles, shame-faced. “I tried to give myself curls in high school, but I’d never used one before in my life. Ended up frying my hair as well as my neck.” Rey turns to glare at him. “And I am  _ only  _ telling you that because your story was more embarrassing.” 

Ben places a hand over his heart. “I won’t tell anyone.” His fingers sweep down to a long, thin line on her back and dance over it. “What about this one?” 

Shivering, Rey leans forward and tugs her knees up to her chest. “That one doesn’t have a funny story,” she says quietly. 

Ben stills immediately, his palm flat on her skin. The heat is comforting, and Rey automatically curves into it. “You don’t have to tell me.” 

_ Don’t,  _ she tells herself.  _ Brush it off. Where’s that distance you’re supposed to be maintaining?  _ Somewhere on a scenic overview in the silence of a moment before she’d asked him to kiss her. So Rey gives him a hunched shrug. “It was a long time ago. One of my foster dads was a mean drunk. He had this switch that he used when I got too irritating. It was like this thing he’d perfected just for hitting me with. It stung like crazy, but it didn’t leave any marks. Except for once. After that, I got moved to another family.” She rests her chin on her knees and watches the cars stream along the ribbon-light roads so far below. 

The confession leaves her feeling lighter, and isn’t that damning? It should be nothing, mean nothing, because she’s not supposed to be telling Ben things like this. That’s hard to remember when she’s pressed up against him.  

“What an asshole,” Ben grumbles, and he drops a kiss at the base of her neck. 

Rey smirks. “That’s an understatement.” 

They lapse into silence for a while, Rey still wrapped in Ben’s arms. He’s the one to break it again. “I got this one-” he begins, and Rey follows his gaze to a long slash mark across his right arm, “-when I stole my dad’s car.” 

Instantly, Rey’s curiosity is piqued. She’d almost given up on knowing how the Falcon and Han ever got seperated, but for the first time, Ben seems inclined to tell her. Even if she was sticking to her resolution, she would make an exception for this. Rey wriggles around until she’s facing him, trying not to seem too eager. “As in the Falcon?” she asks.

Tight-lipped, Ben nods. 

“You don’t have to tell me, either,” Rey says, though she’s dying to know. She can at least extend him the same courtesy he’d given her. 

Ben sighs and falls back onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling. 

He’s backwards, his feet up near the pillows, his head near the end of the bed, but Rey moves to stretch herself beside him. She, too, fixes her gaze on the ceiling, her arms at her side. Slowly, her pinkie finger edges out until it’s pressed against the side of Ben’s hand. She hooks his pinkie finger in hers and notices his lips twitch into something like a smile. 

He moves to cover her hand with his, thumb tracing a path over her knuckles. “When I was 16, I got myself thrown out of my uncle’s boarding school,” Ben says. “I couldn’t face my parents. I was… terrified thinking they might ship me off somewhere else, so I snuck off the night I got back to the palace. Never even saw them. I just found the Falcon sitting in the garage, jacked the keys, and took off. It would have been a brilliant idea, except I had no idea how to drive. Ran the car straight off the road, scraped the shit out of both of us.”

Rey gives his hand a gentle squeeze. She’s spent so long missing her parents, having them at all would seem like a miracle. To her, their abandonment was the ultimate rejection, a sure sign they didn’t want her. She wonders what it would have been like to grow up around them but apart from them, sent away when possible, largely ignored when not. It’s not a question of who had it better or worse. They’d both known deep and aching loneliness in different ways and been left scarred. “Did your parents find you after that?” she asks. 

Ben shakes his head. “No. The car still ran, so I just… kept going. Eventually, I ditched it in a storage place somewhere and found something less noticeable, but that’s the last time my dad ever saw it. I picked it up from the old lot before calling Jyn.”  

That certainly explained the lack of maintenance. It had been sitting away rusting for over a decade. Rey is even more impressed with the resilient little machine, knowing that. 

She unlaces their hands, but only so she can roll to one side and drape herself over Ben’s chest instead. She tucks her face in the junction of his shoulder and whispers, “I’m glad you called Jyn.” She feels like she should say more, wants to say more, but her eyelids are suddenly so heavy. The day is catching up with her, and the warmth of Ben underneath her isn’t helping anything. 

“Me too,” Ben says, his hand tracing a slow line up her back. 

“Mmmm?” It takes Rey a couple seconds to connect the dots between her statement and his. “Oh. Yeah.” Ben moves underneath her, then, and she makes a small sound of protest. 

“Come on,” Ben coaxes. “Under the covers. I think it’s time for you to sleep.” 

No argument from Rey. She crawls under the sheets and waits impatiently for Ben to join her before reclaiming her spot on his chest. “Night,” she sighs. 

“Goodnight, Rey.” 

The last thing she feels before sliding into sleep is his lips on her forehead. 


	5. Chapter 5

Rey wakes slowly, her mind first, then her body. She stays with her eyes closed, face pressed into a pillow - not Ben, not anymore - as her hand slides to the other side of the mattress, exploring. It encounters only empty air. She’s disappointed, maybe, but not surprised. With a soft sigh, she opens her eyes. 

The first sign she has that Ben hasn’t actually left yet is his shirt crumpled on her bedroom floor. The second is a soft clang from the kitchen. 

Rey sits up and rubs at her face, combing her fingers through her hair to try and tame the tangle at least a little bit. When it’s out of her eyes, she slides out of the bed, gaze lingering on Ben’s shirt. Another noise from the kitchen decides it, and she plucks his shirt off the floor, shimmying into it before padding out to investigate. 

Ben is standing at the stove, his boxers just peeking out above the waistband of his jeans as he reaches for one of the taller cabinets. A couple pans sit patiently, one filled with golden-brown pancakes, the other with scrambled eggs. 

A jolt runs through her as Rey realizes how much she likes the tableau of domesticity, and she overcompensates trying to ignore it. “Do you always make breakfast for someone after sleeping with them?” she asks as she makes her way to the table. 

Ben glances at her over his shoulder. “I do, actually. Where are your plates?” 

Rey waves him off as she steps into the kitchen and retrieves the plates for him. She’s about to call bullshit on his  _ I do, actually  _ when she remembers their meeting in the cornerstore, the hoodie he’d been wearing the same as the one in the paper. He’d been buying eggs. “Oh.” She busies herself digging out forks so she doesn’t have to look at him. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I had you pegged as the love them and leave them type.” 

Ben flips over a pancake and snorts. “I’m a slut, not an asshole.” Pancakes finished, he flicks off the burner and starts divvying them up between the two plates. 

Rey laughs in spite of herself. “You could be both,” she points out. 

Ben pauses in the process of sliding eggs onto her plate. His eyes meet hers, his expression unreadable. “Do you think I’m an asshole?” 

Unbidden, the image of him spraying her with the hose flashes into her mind. It’s quickly replaced with the memory of the night before, when he’d held her and listened to her talk about her old life with a quiet intensity. “I think you’re complicated,” she says after a beat.

Whatever Ben is about to say is lost in the sudden commotion of the key turning in the lock and an irritated Rose bursting into the apartment. 

“Believe me, Rey,” she says, shucking her backpack to the floor, “you’re not missing out on anything by not going to your high school reunions. That was the worst-” She abruptly stops talking, and her eyes go wide when she sees the kitchen’s other occupant. “Pri… Prince Solo?” 

Rey’s brain short circuits. Rose isn’t supposed to be here. Rose and Ben aren’t supposed to be here at the same time. She needs an explanation. She needs an excuse. She has neither. “Ben made breakfast.” 

“You don’t go to your high school reunions?” Ben asks at the same second Rose squeaks, “ _ Ben? _ ”

Amidst all the chaos, Paige pushes her way in. She tries to take in the scene in front of her - Rey can practically see the gears in her head turning as she looks first to Rey, then her sister, then Ben - but she ends up staring uncomprehendingly. “Whaaaat is going on here?” she asks. 

“That’s a really, really good question,” Rose says. “Rey?” 

And then all their eyes on her, even Ben’s, and Rey wishes the floor would open up and swallow her whole. “So you remember that car I’ve been working on?” she asks faintly. 

Rose and Paige both nod. 

“It… kind of belongs to Ben. Prince Solo.” Wincing internally, she glances at Ben from the corner of her eye. He’s switched from staring at her to studying the sisters. 

“I know you,” he says unexpectedly. “You were at the Met Gala with Rey.” He turns toward Paige. “And you’ve been at a lot of places, right?” 

Paige nods, looking more than a little impressed. Then her face splits into a wide grin. “Rey told us you told Hux to fuck off,” she says. “Please tell me that’s true.” 

“I have,” Ben confirms, voice full of amusement. “More than once.” 

“Like I told Rey, anyone who does that is okay with me.” Paige scoops up Rose’s backpack and disappears into the bedroom. A second later, she returns to haul Rose in with her, the door closing behind them with a click. 

Since the floor has stubbornly refused to swallow Rey, she’s still standing there when Ben turns back to her. “Yeah, so, um, you might have been a secret,” she says unnecessarily. 

Amused smile on his lips, Ben tilts his head towards the closed bedroom door. “I don’t think I am anymore.” 

Feeling unbelievably awkward, Rey makes her way to the table with her plate. She doesn’t feel much like eating, but she feels even less like standing there any longer. 

Ben joins her, and they eat mostly in silence. Rey keeps sneaking glances at him, her eyes darting away every time he catches her at it. Eventually, she can’t take it anymore, and she says in a rush, “I’m sorry, I should’ve told them. Or not brought you over. Or something.” 

Ben rests his hand over hers. “Rey,” he says. He waits until she looks at him before continuing. “It’s fine, honestly. I don’t care that you didn’t tell them. I didn’t even know I could  _ be  _ a secret.” He leans in a little closer and lowers his voice, shooting a quick glance over towards the bedroom to make sure the door is still closed. “You don’t regret last night, do you?” 

“No,” Rey says with a firm shake of her head. She might be regretting the aftermath, but she wouldn’t have changed anything about the night before. 

With a squeeze, Ben releases her hand. “Then we’re good.” He takes his plate over towards the sink and comes back for hers, leaning half over her to get it. “By the way,” he says, voice little more than a whisper in her ear, “was there a reason the tiny one kept glancing at my crotch?” 

Rey goes bright red, her mouth opening and closing soundlessly a few times. “Uuuuum… She might have… seen some things.” 

Ben rolls his eyes, picks up her plate, and straightens back up. “I fucking hate that sex tape,” he mutters. 

It isn’t until Rey and Ben are safely back behind the curtain of her room that she realizes how grateful she is that he was at least wearing pants. Rose and Paige have seen her in pretty much nothing before, but they really don’t need to see Ben in nothing but his boxers. In person, anyway. 

She strips off his shirt and hands it over before digging out some clothes of her own. They still don’t say much, not until they’re slipping out into the hallway and Rey pulls the door mostly closed behind them. 

“So,” Ben says, his hands shoved in his pockets. “How much work do you have left to do on the Falcon?” 

Rey has almost forgotten all this was because of a car. “Not much, mostly cosmetic stuff,” she says. “I wanted to repaint it from the start, and I scuffed some things up while I was digging around in the engine.” That’s a bit of an understatement; barely any of the original paint job has survived. 

Ben just nods. “How long will that take?” 

“Three, maybe four days?” Rey estimates. “I’ll need time for each color to set and everything.”  _ But I shouldn’t be in your hair too much longer,  _ she adds silently. The question stings a little, no matter how much she wants to pretend it doesn’t. She knows he’s not used to sticking around the girls he’s slept with, even for a few days. It should be fine, she tells herself. He has that whole giant house he can stay in to avoid her. 

“Okay,” Ben says. “See you tomorrow, then? Something tells me you’re going to be busy today.” 

That smirk is tugging at his lips again, and Rey squashes down the irrational instinct to kiss it away. “Tomorrow,” she agrees. 

They linger a little bit, neither of them sure who should be the first to say goodbye. “Well,” Ben eventually says. “Bye.” 

“Bye.” Rey waits until his back is turned and he’s heading for the elevator before slipping back into her apartment. 

She finds the Tico sisters standing with their arms folded over their chests. They’re desperately trying to look stern, but Rey can see barely concealed delight just under the surface. “Young lady,” Rose says, “you have some serious explaining to do.” 

“You said late afternoon!” Rey blurts out. “This is not late afternoon!” 

Paige grimaces. “Yeah, let’s just say the reunion didn’t go quite as expected.” 

Desperate for any way to turn the focus off her, Rey asks them what happened. 

Rose rolls her eyes. “A horde of drunken used-to-be-jocks got the reunion cut off, like, a couple hours after it started,” she says. “We didn’t even end up spending the night there; we just started heading back and got a hotel along the way.” 

“Men are idiots,” Paige scowls.

“Paige,” Rose hisses, elbowing her sister and cutting her eyes towards Rey. 

Paige is immediately apologetic. “Well, maybe not all of them,” she concedes. “Prince Solo was nicer than I was expecting.” 

Rose practically skips over to Rey and winds her arm about her shoulders even though it’s a bit of a stretch. “So what’s the deal?” she asks, tugging her over towards the couch. “Do we have to start calling you princess now?” 

Rey allows herself to be pulled down onto the cushions, and she shakes her head with a light laugh. “There would be a lot of princesses running around if sleeping with Ben was the only criteria,” she points out. 

“Rey!” Paige collapses onto the cushion next to her, sounding a little shocked. 

“Well, it’s true,” Rey says defensively. “I think he may be regretting doing it before I was finished with the car, though. Now he has to actually see me again.” She makes a bit of a face, trying to look more offended than upset. 

Rose and Paige exchange glances. “Are you… okay with that?” Rose asks slowly. 

Shit. Rey takes a deep breath in and lets it out through her nose. “Yeah,” she says after a brief moment. “Yeah, I’m fine.” 

Except it all hits her how not fine it is when Ben texts her the next morning. 

**_hey won’t be around when you get there today jsyk. left the garage unlocked for you_ **

She’d known it was coming, or something like it, but it still hurts to see it so plainly spelled out. She doesn’t even bother to reply. There’s nothing to say, really, she’d known what she was getting into the moment she’d asked him to kiss her. It would have been fine if she hadn’t waited so long, if she couldn’t remember the rumpled way he looked when she’d woken him too early that first day or the gentle way he’d taken her hands to lead her into his house for the first time. If he was just Prince Solo instead of Ben. 

Rey decides she doesn’t want to have the whole space of a taxi ride to dig herself even deeper into her own head, so she hauls out her bike instead. It takes all of her concentration to navigate the busy New York City streets so she doesn’t have time to think about Ben, or feelings, or any of it. As the traffic thins out and her surroundings get more suburban, she concentrates on speed, pouring her frustration into physicality. Soon, she’s zipping along at breakneck speed, only slowing when she makes the turn into Ben’s drive. 

By that time, the sun is well into the sky, and she’s soaked in her own sweat. She feels gross, but it was worth it. Her mind is blessedly clear. She’s half-expecting to see Ben waiting for her despite everything as she steps into the garage, but it’s as empty as he said it would be. Sighing, Rey bundles her hair into a ponytail and digs out the sandpaper. It’s going to be a long day. 

Sanding off the paint is a mindless task, something Rey can use to take out her frustration. She scrubs at the paint like it owes her money, large flakes settling on her skin and sticking because it’s still hot and she’s still sweating and the garage is still empty but for her and the Falcon. It takes hours to get everything back down to bare metal. 

Noon dips into afternoon, and Rey is methodically scraping at one last stubborn patch around the bumper when someone steps into the garage. She half-turns to see who it is but a familiar pair of arms are already wrapping around her waist, an equally familiar voice saying “Hey” in her ear. Her heart stutters. This doesn’t seem like he’s regretting anything.

Ben presses his lips to the exposed patch of skin where her shirt has slipped from her shoulder. 

It takes Rey a moment before she can speak, and when she does, her voice cracks. “What are you doing?” 

Another kiss, this one closer to her neck. “I thought that was kind of obvious,” he chuckles.

Rey pushes at his arm, trying to get away. “Oh, no, stop-” He loosens his hold, and she steps smoothly back a pace. “I’m too sweaty and gross for that.”

Ben leans against the car, one arm propped on the roof. “We can fix that,” he smirks. 

Rey narrows her eyes. “If you spray me with that hose again, Ben Solo, I swear to god-” 

He cuts her off with a shake of his head. “Believe it or not, I was thinking of something more civilized,” he says, holding out one hand out to her. “Like a shower.” 

Rey glances down at his hand and back up to his face. He seems earnest about it, like he’s genuinely waiting for her to go with him. She’d been so sure he’d want to keep avoiding her, but he’s acting like nothing has changed. Well, that’s not entirely true. The kisses are new. “Okay,” Rey agrees, slipping her hand into his. If he can be mature about it, so can she. Besides, wallowing isn’t any fun. 

She still winces a little when she steps into the house, although this time it’s paint flakes, not grit, that she’s worried about shedding. Ben must notice her hesitation because he tightens his grip on her hand and doesn’t let her fall behind. She expects him to leave like he’d done before, but he swings the bathroom door shut and starts tugging at his clothes before she can say a word. “What are you doing?” she asks for the second time in as many minutes. 

Ben pauses with his shirt halfway over his head. Her eyes definitely aren’t drawn to the strip of stomach he’s exposing. “Is that your thing today? Questioning the obvious?” 

“No, I just…”  _ thought you didn’t want anything to do with me anymore.  _ “Never mind.” She strips out of her own shirt, eyeing Ben as she unhooks her bra. It had been dark in her apartment the other night, but now she can really appreciate the hard set of muscles that is his torso. Ben catches her staring, and she immediately looks away, cheeks hot. 

“You can look if I can,” he says, lifting his eyebrows suggestively. 

Rey drops her bra and spreads her arms. “Look away.” She’s been naked in front of him before, but watching his eyes go dark as they travel over her still sends a shiver down her spine. Eventually, his gaze catches hers and he drifts a few steps closer. She watches him approach, breath coming a bit faster as he draws ever nearer. But he barely brushes her as he reaches past to flick on the water. 

“Might want to take your pants off before you get in,” he points out and proceeds to step out of his own. 

Rey busies herself with getting hers off instead of looking where she really wants to look.  _ He _ may be shameless, but she draws the line at openly staring at his dick.

The shower is more than big enough to hold the two of them. They could stand half a foot apart and still have room left over, but Ben presses in close enough to drip on her, and Rey doesn’t pull away. The paint chips are stubborn, clinging to her even after she steps into the spray. So Ben takes to running his nails over her arms, the back of her neck, anywhere he can find grey flecks. She practically melts under his attentions, especially when he pulls her hair back from her forehead and scrapes gently over her scalp. She’s pretty sure she doesn’t have any paint in her hair, which means he’s doing that just because, and warmth that has nothing to do with the water temperature blooms in Rey’s chest.  

“Feel good?” he asks, making another pass through her hair. 

Rey just hums and closes her eyes. She doesn’t know what’s more relaxing: the gentle cascade of water or Ben’s impromptu scalp massage. She groans when he stops, but he only pauses long enough to get a dollop of body wash before he’s smoothing his hands over her again. 

When the soap has all been washed away, Ben wraps one arm around Rey’s chest and pulls her back against him. He’s even warmer than the water, and she allows herself to sag against him. “Not sweaty and gross anymore,” he says, barely audible over the sounds of the shower. 

Rey’s hum of agreement turns into a gasp when Ben’s other hand dips between her legs. Her head falls back to rest against his shoulder, eyes closed against the spray. She half-opens her mouth to tell him to stop, that she’s spent the whole morning tangled up in knots because of him, but she closes it without speaking. If this is a mistake, it’s one she’s going to enjoy making. 

“You’re so wet,” Ben says, lips close to her ear, and she can practically feel his smile against her neck. 

Rey groans. “Not after that terrible pun, I’m not.” But she has to swallow down a moan as his thumb finds her clit and his fingers run along her lips. He massages her with maddening regularity, just enough to send shocks of pleasure curling through her but not enough to build to anything more intense. Eventually, she worms one arm out from under his and reaches behind her to thread her fingers through his hair. The move serves the dual purpose of giving her something to brace against so she can cant her hips encouragingly. 

Ben makes a short, clipped sound, his thumb stills briefly, and Rey realizes shifting her hips has dragged her ass right over his cock. 

_ Good,  _ she thinks.  _ Time to tease  _ him  _ for a bit.  _ She rolls her hips again, deliberately pushing back against him as she does. She can feel him beginning to harden beneath her, and it only encourages her further. Then, Ben’s arm falls from her chest to her waist, braced across her hips and effectively stopping her from moving them. She tries wiggling a bit, but it’s not enough to satisfy either of them. “You don’t fight fair,” she mutters. 

“No, I don’t.” Ben doesn’t sound the least bit chastised as he resumes the slow circling of his thumb. 

Pleasure builds in a slow wave instead of the usual surge. It folds back on itself, layer by layer, until the muscles in Rey’s abdomen are taut with anticipation. She’s never been this patient on her own, always so eager for the inevitable end. 

She does her best to bite back the gasps and moans that rise to her lips, not wanting to give him the satisfaction, but she can’t keep a few from slipping out. She feels too good to consider it much of a defeat anyways. Slowly but surely, Rey begins to lose herself in the pleasure of it. Her head lolls back against his shoulder, eyes still closed, and she whimpers at every pass of his thumb. 

Only then does Ben loosen his grip on her waist. 

Rey is too far gone to notice, but her hips move of their own accord, rocking with the pace he’s set. “Ah-!” Ben’s finger slipping inside her is completely unexpected, but not at all unwelcome. She had half-expected him to keep up his sweet torture forever, but now that he’s gone further, she’s eager for more. “Yes,” she whispers, the small sound lost in the noise of the shower. She’s slick enough that he soon adds a second finger, and Rey moans at the feeling of it. It’s too much after so long with so little. It’s not enough; she wants more. 

“More” comes in the form of him brushing over that sweet spot inside her. She clings to his arm as her knees go weak, her breath leaving her all in a rush. Just as she’s riding on the crest of that slow-built wave, ready to topple down the other side, Ben stops. She’s so frustrated, she could scream. Instead, all that comes out is a strangled gasp. 

“Patience, Rey,” Ben says, and then she knows why he’s doing this. 

She remembers how eager she’d been the first time, how quick to forget her desire to go slow in the face of satisfaction. “Okay, I get it,” she says, although really she’d say anything to get him to keep moving. “Patience is a virtue, I’ll remember, I swear, just  _ please,  _ Ben, let me come.” 

He relents, though for a second she’s convinced he won’t. 

She nearly sobs in relief as he pumps his fingers in and out, faster than he’d done before, his thumb flicking at her clit in long strokes, slow, everything in between. Anticipation makes everything sweeter, and Rey has been waiting for this for a while now. The orgasm rolls across her in one long sweep, leaching away the strength from her muscles. She would have collapsed but for Ben’s arm tightening around her and keeping her upright. She sags against him, slack-jawed and sated, as he reaches around to shut off the water. 

For a moment, there’s only the sound of her ragged breathing and the soft plop of water onto the wet floor. “I take it back,” she finally says, her tongue clumsy. “You  _ are  _ an asshole.” 

Ben laughs and scoops her up just long enough to set her outside of the shower. “But an asshole who sometimes knows what he’s talking about, right?” 

Considering she still feels limp and boneless, Rey can only nod. She accepts the towel Ben offers her and bundles up in it. As Ben dries himself off, she is suddenly reminded that she was not the only one affected by their little tryst in the shower. His cock curves up towards his stomach, red and eager and wet from more than just water. 

Abandoning her towel, she sidles closer to Ben until she can reach out and lay a hand on his chest. “If I were petty,” she says, fingers trailing down over his stupidly pronounced pecs, “I would make you wait for this.” She wraps her hand around his cock and squeezes gently. “Lucky for you, I’m fucking nice.”  

Ben shudders, and he sways towards her ever so slightly. It’s intensely gratifying to know that something as small as her touch can elicit such a response. 

She strokes him once, twice, her thumb running over the head each time. Then, she releases him. 

Ben’s eyes narrow. “Thought you said you were nice,” he mutters. 

“I am.” She seizes his wrists and starts tugging him back towards the bedroom. “I want to use my mouth but don’t want to kill my knees on the tile, that’s all.” She thinks he makes a quiet, choked noise at that but it’s too soft to be sure. Still, her lips curve into a smirk. She wonders what other kinds of sounds she can coax out of him. 

As soon as they hit carpet, Rey turns on him, smoothing her hands over his chest, down his abdomen. “Have I told you how ridiculously built you are?” she asks. 

Ben tries and fails to suppress a smile. “No.” 

She scrapes her nails bluntly down his abs with a wistful sigh. “Well, you are.” She lowers herself to her knees and presses her cheek into the hard line of his abdomen, fully aware how her warm breath ghosts over his cock. “It’s sexy.” This time, the strangled noise is much clearer. A satisfied smile flits over her lips before Rey parts them to run her tongue lazily over the head of his cock, cheek still pressed against him. She can feel the way he tenses under her but eventually draws back to take him in hand. 

As she strokes him, Rey glances up to find him with his eyes closed and his mouth slightly open in an attempt to breathe normally. It’s amusing, how much control he’s trying to keep over himself. She looks forward to wrecking it. 

Hand gripping the base of his dick, Rey licks a stripe up the rest of it, taking care to lap up the precome beaded at the top. It’s the first time she’s tasted him, and she savors that almost as much as the way Ben’s eyelids flicker. She laps at him a few more times, but despite her earlier lesson, she’s too impatient to draw it out much further. Soon, she wraps her lips over the head of his cock, tongue pressed flat against his leaking slit. He’s heat and salt, and she hums as she takes in more of him. 

The next breath Ben takes is decidedly shaky, and his hands aren’t all that steady either as they thread into her hair. 

Inch by inch, Rey slides her mouth down his cock until she can’t go any farther. She wraps her hand around what she can’t fit and gives herself a second to adjust before she starts moving in earnest. The next time she glances up at him, his eyes are open and dark with lust. It sends a flare of heat through her, a pleasant thrill of satisfaction that she can do this to him. Keeping her eyes fixed on his, she lowers her mouth again, only stopping when the head of his cock brushes the back of her throat. 

Above her, Ben groans, and she would smirk if her lips weren’t otherwise occupied. She tongues his slit again as she slides back up, then down again, then Ben’s hands move from her hair to her shoulders and he’s pushing her away. 

“Stop, shit, I’m too close.” 

Rey pulls off him a little reluctantly. “I thought that was the point,” she says.  _ She  _ certainly hadn’t been about to ask him to stop. 

He tugs her to her feet and walks her back towards the bed. “It is.” 

Rey’s knees hit the back of the mattress and she lets herself fall onto it, scooting backwards even as Ben crawls over her. He reaches into his bedside drawer and retrieves a condom; unlike Rey, he doesn’t bother checking the expiration date. Her eyebrows twitch upwards as he pushes her legs apart and settles between them. “I thought you never slept with anyone twice.” 

“I don’t,” he says, and then he pushes into her. 

Rey curls her hand around the back of his head. “Does that make me special?” she teases. He doesn’t reply, but she doesn’t expect him to. She already knows the answer. Not special, just available. She turns her brain off after that and lets instinct take over, her body moving automatically with Ben’s as he chases his release. She savors the look on his face when he comes, an expression she hadn’t thought she’d get to see again. 

After he pulls out and tosses the condom, he settles behind her, an arm draped loosely over her stomach. 

With a soft sigh, Rey curls back against him, content for the moment just to be held. She’s not tired enough to sleep, but the soft sound of Ben’s breathing could get her there. Before it has the chance, she clears her throat and pushes gently at his arm. “I should get back to work,” she says. “The sooner I do, the sooner the Falcon is finished.” For a second, Ben’s arm seems to tighten around her, but then he draws it back, and Rey figures she probably imagined it. 

“Want me to come down there with you?” he asks, already moving to get up. 

“Actually, I think it’s better if you don’t.” Rey busies herself with gathering her clothes instead of looking at him. “I’m going to start painting, and there’s only one mask.” 

“Oh.” Ben slumps back down. “So I’m guessing you won’t need me tomorrow then, either.” 

Rey buttons up her jeans and starts heading for the door. “Probably not.” She pauses in the doorway, glancing back at him, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip. She feels like she should say something, but she has no idea what. Apologize for getting herself tangled up over him? Beg him to at least remember her after all this? Instead, she steps into the hall and closes the door behind her. 

She doesn’t leave the garage until the base coat is entirely finished, primer and all. When she’s done, it looks like a plain gray Chevelle, and she knows she could call it quits if she wanted to right then. The Falcon wouldn’t be restored quite to its former glory, but it would be close. Even as she retrieves her bike and starts pedaling home, she knows she’ll be back again the next day. It’s no longer an “if”; Ben  _ is  _ a mistake, but one she’ll keep making until she can’t anymore. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the mystery of the eggs is finally solved ;) 
> 
> ben's line "i'm a slut, not an asshole" is basically the entire foundation for his character in this fic, just so y'all know


	6. Chapter 6

Having to pedal almost twenty miles back to her apartment after sex convinces Rey to leave the bike behind and go back to taking cabs. She stares out the window, mentally plotting the best way to do the detailing for the Falcon. She has about a dozen pictures of peregrines saved to her phone, and a dozen more of the car back in its golden age. The garage is unlocked and she strolls right in, missing a step when she finds Ben circling the car. It looks a mess at the moment, patched with newspaper and masking tape to keep paint from getting where it’s not supposed to. 

He glances up as she comes in. “I’ll get out of your way,” he promises. “I just wanted to see how it was going.” 

Rey isn’t as put off as she thought she would be by his presence, but that doesn’t mean she wants him to stick around. Or rather, she wants him to stick around too much, a sure sign that she needs him to leave. She crouches in front of the cabinets, rummaging around for the paints she’d stashed there. “So far, it’s going gray,” she says. “I’ve still got to do all of the detailing, which should take all of today and most of tomorrow. Then it’s done.”  _ Then we’re done.  _ She hauls the paints out and picks one at random, hooking a roll of masking tape over one elbow and depositing both next to the car. 

Hands in his pockets, Ben wanders toward the door. He’s almost out when he swings around as if just remembering something. “Have dinner with me,” he says.

Rey keeps moving, scooping up a handful of newspapers and dropping them by the paint. “What? Where?” 

“Here.” Ben leans against the doorjamb. “I’ll make something; it’ll give me something to do while you’re working.” 

Rey rolls her eyes at him but she’s almost smiling. It’s a sweet gesture, and she wants to accept it right off, but she thinks it would be better for them both if she made some excuse about having to go home early. “Are you sure?” she finds herself asking instead. 

“Yeah,” Ben says with a shrug. “I mean, I like cooking but I don’t get to do it very often. It’s a lot of effort for one person.” Something flickers in his eyes, sardonic and maybe a little self-deprecating. 

It makes Rey’s heart ache. She clears her throat and sets to papering up the spots she doesn’t want to paint. “Okay, sure,” she says. 

With that, he departs, leaving Rey alone with her thoughts. She has plenty of them, not least of which is when did she become such a masochist? Sex is one thing, but sitting down to have dinner with him seems dangerously close to a date.  _ It’s not,  _ she tells herself with a stubborn shake of her head.  _ Just because  _ you  _ think of it that way doesn’t mean he does. He’s being nice. Don’t make it weird.  _

Still, there’s a niggling hope in the back of her mind that insists she’s not reading into anything. Insists this invitation is exactly what she wants it to be. 

Rey drowns the voice out with the sound of an air compressor and a paint gun. The Falcon starts to emerge underneath her careful hands, the dark gray linings, the flecks of white and hints of golden brown. Two coats in and the sun gets low enough that she decides to call it quits. All she has left is the final base coat and then the clear topcoat to set everything in place. She has plenty of time for that the next day. Besides, she can see Ben making his way over, so she sets everything aside and stretches out her back. There’s an audible pop that has her grimacing as Ben steps in. 

“Everything okay?” he asks. 

Rey shakes off the ache. “Yeah, just been bent over all day.” Her stomach chooses that second to chime in, grumbling loudly. “And I’m also starving.” 

Ben laughs and tilts his head back towards the house. “Good thing dinner’s ready,” he says. 

“What are we having?” Rey asks purely out of curiosity. She’s not picky even when she’s not starving; at this point, she’d eat anything he put in front of her. 

“Beggar’s chicken and chickpea butternut tagine,” Ben says, ushering her in. 

For once, she isn’t filthy, and Rey steps right over the threshold. “I have no idea what either of those things are,” she admits. 

Ben leads Rey into the massive dining room, a place she hasn’t been before, and pulls out a chair for her. She sinks into it, too busy staring at the room surrounding them to even glance at her plate. It wouldn’t have mattered much if she did; a white cloth covers both of their plates. The table could easily seat half a dozen, though there are only two places set. Windows surround them, bathing the whole room in the dusky orange of sunset and setting the richly decorated rug the table rests on aflame. 

“This place still doesn’t seem real,” Rey mutters to herself. It seems just as fairytale as it had the first day she’d come. Then, the smell of baked chicken hits her, and her attention is fully fixed on the mysterious cloth. “Am I allowed to take this off?” she asks, fiddling with the corner. Her stomach is practically screaming.

“Yeah,” Ben says. “Didn’t want it getting cold while I went to get you.”

Rey tugs it off, and the mouth-watering scent only gets stronger. She pokes at a pile of something-that-must-be-tagine, eyes narrowed as she examines it.

Chickpeas, Ben had said, and she definitely sees those. Tomatoes. Squash. She’s not sure what the fluffy white stuff at the bottom is, but she scoops up a forkful and eats it anyways. Delicious, that’s what the fluffy white stuff is. She hums around her fork, and Ben flashes her a smile. 

She pokes at it again. “Rice?” she asks. 

“Couscous,” Ben corrects. 

Rey takes another bite. “Sounds fancy.” 

Ben shakes his head, smile still playing over his lips. “Not really. If you want fancy, try the chicken.” 

Rey eyes the chicken, but it looks mostly normal to her. “What makes it beggar’s chicken?” she asks, sawing off a piece. 

Ben shrugs slightly. “The taste is more important than the process,” he points out. 

“Hey.” Rey knocks her foot against his under the table. “You listened to me go on for hours about car parts. I can spare a minute for chicken.” It’s almost frighteningly easy to get drawn into his explanation about how the chicken is marinated, stuffed, and coated in clay before it’s baked, and about halfway through Rey realizes she’s forgotten to actually eat the thing. Quickly, she takes a bite and ends up interrupting Ben with an involuntary moan. “Sorry,” she mumbles, hand pressed to her mouth. “It’s really, really good.”

Ben ducks his head, and Rey thinks she catches the hint of a blush. 

They fall into silence after that, but Rey doesn’t mind. It gives her space to focus on eating instead of talking. Unfortunately, it also gives her space to think. She’s been avoiding the topic of leaving all day, both in conversation with Ben and in her own mind. Now, however, their impending break seems to be looming over them. Ben is a prince in a mansion; she’s a mechanic squeezed into a one-bedroom apartment with two other girls. There won’t be any casual run-ins after this. Once she’s gone, she’s gone. 

Ben’s soft growl pulls her out of her thoughts. “Goddammit,” he says, and she glances around for the source of his frustration. 

“What’s wrong?” she asks when nothing is immediately apparent. 

Ben looks suddenly agitated, running his hands through his hair, his gaze flicking to her and then away again. “Why did you have to ask me that?” 

Rey sets down her fork, her mouth dry, the food gone tasteless. “Ask you what?” 

“If you were special.” His eyes finally land on her, and she remembers asking him as he sank into her the second time, remembers that he never had answered. “You have to know you are.” 

All the air in her lungs leaves her in a rush. She wants desperately to ask him what he means by that, but she can’t get her mouth to obey her. All she can do is tighten her grip on her fork until her knuckles turn white. 

“God…” Ben rakes his hand through his hair again. “I’m a walking cliche, Rey. I sleep with people, and then I leave before anything real can happen because I don’t know what I would do if I let something be real. But then there’s you. And I can’t get you out of my head long enough to even look at anyone else.” He slumps back against his chair with a quiet sigh. 

Rey’s body is still, but her mind is racing a mile a minute. There are so many things she wants to say, to warn him not to fuck with her, to tell him she feels it too, whatever it is. Yet her tongue sits heavy as lead in her mouth, immobile. 

Ben speaks again, and Rey forces herself to listen past the rush of blood in her ears. “I know you could leave as easily as anyone else, and maybe I can only tell you this because you  _ are  _ leaving, but I just… I had to say it. I had to tell you.” 

Finally, blessedly, Rey gets her body to obey her. “I don’t want to leave,” she says. “To never see you again.” All that time spent thinking about how they had an expiration date. All those questions she’d swallowed down, the conversations they’d never had because Rey was too afraid to let herself get attached. All that disappears in the face of them possibly having a future. 

Ben’s eyes grow wide with disbelief. “Are you serious?” he asks, voice little more than a whisper. 

Rey lets her fork fall to the table in favor of reaching for Ben’s hand. “Very.” But even as she strokes her thumb over his knuckles, something occurs to her that has her drawing back. “Wait a second. You’re a prince. Doesn’t that mean you have to end up with some princess or political figurehead or something?” 

The question doesn’t seem to faze him. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not very good at being a prince,” he says blandly. His hand chases after hers, reclaims it. “And you’re a very compelling reason to misbehave.” 

There’s an edge to his tone that has Rey shivering. “So… you’re saying…” She trails off, not completely sure what he’s saying and not wanting to put words in his mouth. 

“I’m saying,” Ben leans in, “that I’m willing to try a lot of things when it comes to you. If that’s what you want.” 

Rey’s heart pounds against her ribcage like it’s trying to tear its way out and place itself in his hands. Her body responds before her mouth does, her head already nodding before she says, “Yes. I want that. I want  _ you. _ ” It’s an admission as much to herself as it is to him, like she’s finally given herself permission to voice what she’s known for a while now. She wants to get to know him better, much better. And she wants him to know her too. 

She’s sliding out of her seat before she knows it and moving to drop onto Ben’s lap, her arms curling around his shoulders, her legs bracketing his. His hands are warm on her hips, steadying her as she leans in to kiss him. Rey can feel his interest stirring beneath her, and she smirks against his lips. “I think we should head to your room,” she says, pulling back just long enough to say it before her mouth finds his again. 

They don’t make it that far. They barely make it up the stairs before Ben’s hands are tugging at her shirt and hers are on his chest. He gets her against the wall and kisses her so desperately that they forego the few feet it would take to get them to the room. He fucks her rougher than he has before, her legs wrapped firmly around his waist, her fingers tangled up in his hair. No lessons in patience this time; good thing too, because Rey is not in a patient mood.

Once they’re both spent and Rey is walking on decidedly unstable legs, they end up in Ben’s bed. Rey wraps her limbs around him with a contented sigh. She doesn’t ever want to leave the comforting circle of his arms. Hard to believe that just that morning she’d thought she would probably never see him again after the next day. 

Ben’s hand traces the ridges of her spine, slow and soothing, and somewhere between one breath and the next, Rey drifts off to sleep. 

-

She’s back at work early the next morning, eager to finish the Falcon now that she knows it doesn’t spell the end for her and Ben. She’d left him to sleep in with a gentle kiss to his forehead; he’d never managed to make himself a morning person. 

Hair scraped back in a ponytail to hide the tangled mess it had become, Rey starts in on the last coat of paint. She realizes she’d left her phone behind in the bedroom when she goes to dig out her headphones but, not wanting to head all the way back for it, she contents herself with her own humming, barely audible over the whir of the paint gun.

She does, however, hear the garage door open. A smile blooms behind the mask Rey wears.  _ Ben.  _ She turns to greet him but the name dies on her lips. The man standing there staring at her isn’t Ben, but his face is almost as familiar. Rey’s arms dangle limply at her sides even as he takes the couple steps towards the air compressor and flicks it off. Deafening silence settles in his wake. 

“So,” Han says, tilting his head towards the car, “you must be the girl fixing up my Falcon.” 

Even with every impossible thing that’s happened to her lately, Rey can still barely believe Han Solo is standing in front of her. He’s a legend come to life, and now he’s staring at her expectantly, and suddenly Rey realizes she’s supposed to answer. “Um.” She claws at her mask, ripping it and the safety goggles from her head. “Yes, Mr. King Han Solo, sir. It’s been such an honor to work on it, and to meet you, and-” Babbling. She’s babbling. Instantly, she snaps her jaw shut and reminds herself to breathe. 

“Easy, kid, don’t give yourself a heart attack.” Han offers her a lopsided smile. “Just Han is fine.” He strolls around the car, giving it a long, nerve-wracking onceover. 

Rey can do nothing but watch him, rooted to the spot. 

“Looks just like she did when I had her,” Han says, reaching out to rest his hand over one of the newspapered patches. “Minus the newspaper.” 

“I was only touching up the paint,” Rey squeaks.

Han raises one eyebrow. “I know you’ve fixed up more than the paint. Mind if I take a look under the hood once it’s dry?”

What is she supposed to do, say no? Rey nods dumbly. Her mind is sluggish, and she opens her mouth to speak before she can stop herself. “Sorry, but… what are you doing here?” It sounds ruder than she intended, and she immediately starts backpedaling. “Not that it’s not amazing to meet you, sir, I’m just really confuse-” 

Han puts a hand up to stall the torrent. “Ben told me he had the car here. Told me what he’d done to it too. Said he’d let me know when it was done so I could come get it. But his mother has her own agenda.” His lips curve into a fond smile. 

_ His mother.  _ Rey’s mind immediately goes back to the pictures of the regal-looking woman she’d seen all that time ago, when she’d first looked Ben up. Leia had been intimidating even before Ben had told her that she doubled as a military officer. 

The door flies open again and Ben is there, looking more than a little frantic. “Rey, my parents-” He stops when he sees Han near the Falcon. 

“She knows,” Han says. 

Rey nods once. Her mouth goes dry when a third figure enters the garage. 

Her grey hair is swept back in a no-nonsense bun, a braid stretching across her forehead like a crown. Wrinkles line the corners of her eyes and mouth, but her eyes look young and alive as she regards Rey. “You must be Rey,” she says. “The miracle-worker.” 

Rey flushes, and she executes a hasty bow for lack of a better idea. “Just mechanics, Your Highness, not miracles,” she says, immediately regretting the contradiction. But when she glances up at Leia, there’s a hint of a smile playing at the corners of her lips. 

“I stand corrected,” she says. 

“We should probably let Rey get back to work,” Ben says, giving her an apologetic look. 

Han grunts in agreement. “Looking forward to seeing how she runs,” he tells Rey, already making his way out of the garage. 

“And I look forward to getting better acquainted,” Leia says. With that, she turns and follows after Han, leaving Ben and Rey blessedly alone. 

Feeling a bit faint, Rey sways on her feet. Immediately, Ben’s hands are on her shoulders, steadying her. 

“Sorry,” he says. “I had no idea they were coming. I texted you when I saw them pulling up.” 

“Phone’s in your room,” Rey murmurs. She forces herself to focus on Ben’s face, curling her hand around his wrist, both to keep her balance and to take comfort in his solidity. “Are you going to tell them about us?” 

Ben grimaces. “I don’t think I have to.” 

Brow furrowed, Rey asks, “What do you mean?” 

“We, uh.” Ben clears his throat and glances away. “We forgot to clear the table last night. I’m pretty sure my mother noticed. I don’t… have girls over for dinner very often. Or ever.” 

A giggle rises up to Rey’s lips and bursts through unexpectedly. Once she’s started, she can’t stop, and the giggle morphs into a laugh that leaves her breathless. 

Ben stares at her in bemusement. “What’s so funny?” he asks. 

Rey struggles to get herself under control, but her face is stretched wide in a smile. “I just remembered, the night I met you, I was so embarrassed because I had grease under my fingernails. And now I’ve met the queen and... king? Consort? Han Solo of Alderaan and my hair isn’t even brushed. “I’m kind of a disaster when it comes to you royals, aren’t I?” 

Ben smirks. “It’s worked out well for you so far,” he says. 

“That’s humble of you,” Rey teases, her fingers tightening a little around his wrist. She wants to kiss him. When it occurs to her that there’s nothing stopping her from doing so, she rises up on her toes and presses her lips to his. It’s going to take some getting used to, being with him.  

Ben responds eagerly, sliding an arm about her waist and tugging her closer, deepening the kiss. 

Han’s voice interrupts them. “I thought we were letting her work.” 

Instantly, Rey breaks away, her face flaming red. 

Ben just scowls in Han’s general direction, loath to let Rey go.  _ “Dad.” _

Han raises his hands in mock surrender. “Fine, fine. I’m going. But don’t hold her up too long, will you? That’s  _ my  _ car she’s working on.” 

Rey gently extricates herself from Ben’s hold and retrieves her mask and goggles. “He’s right,” she says. “Besides, I’m kind of excited to have it done too.” 

With a sigh, Ben takes a step back. “Okay. You won’t go without saying goodbye, right?” He looks suddenly worried, as if Rey will vanish as soon as she’s finished after all. 

Rey can’t help it; she pulls him in for another brief kiss. “You have my phone hostage,” she mumbles against his lips. “Can’t leave without that.” Then, reluctantly, she draws back and picks up the paint gun. “Now, leave me alone. You make it hard to concentrate.” 

-

It’s getting on towards evening when Rey peels off the last mass of tape and newspaper. The Falcon emerges like a butterfly from a cocoon, the culmination of all Rey’s blood, sweat, and tears. Pride expands inside her chest; it looks as stunning as it had in all those old pictures she has saved to her phone. She drops the mask and goggles on the workbench, glad to be rid of them, and pushes her hair out of her face where it’s come loose from her ponytail. Very, very carefully, she presses one finger to the overcoat and sighs in relief when it comes away dry. 

When Rey manages to pull herself away from the car, she makes immediately for the mansion. She’s too excited to hesitate on the stoop this time, and she pushes right on into the entryway. Voices filter to her from further inside the house. She follows their path, not altogether sure where it’s taking her and realizing just how little she’s actually seen of the place. The house is way too goddamn big.

The murmur of conversation brings her to what must be a living room, complete with a sofa, no less than three chairs, and a dark-wood fireplace that’s probably unbelievably cozy in the winter. Rey barely has a chance to take in her surroundings before Ben gets up from where he’s seated and steps towards her. 

“You done?” he asks. 

Rey’s eyes wander from the carved paneling on the walls to Ben, and she smiles triumphantly. “It’s as good as new.” 

Han is already up and moving for the garage, keys spinning around his finger. “I’ll be the judge of that,” he grumbles. 

Rey chews at her bottom lip nervously, but Leia waves aside her concern. 

“Ignore him,” she says. “He’ll find fault with anything, but as long as it runs, he’ll thank you.” 

It’s all too easy to recall the sense of freedom that had enveloped her when she’d sat behind the wheel of the Falcon and gone flying down the interstate. “It runs,” she sighs, a little wistful. She knows it belongs with Han, but she’ll still miss it. As if sensing her disappointment, Ben pulls her to his side, and she sinks against him gratefully. Leia clears her throat, and Rey flushes, but she doesn’t leave Ben’s side, only takes to worrying her lip again. 

“So,” Leia says, her eyes traveling from Ben’s face to Rey’s, “there is something here.” 

“Yes,” Ben says, his voice clipped, defensive. 

Leia only smiles and settles back against the couch cushions. “I assume that means you won’t be accompanying us back to Alderaan.” 

“I’m staying here.” Ben’s grip around Rey tightens as if he expects to be pulled away at any second. 

She rests her head against his shoulder and pats his arm reassuringly. She isn’t going anywhere. She still has so much to learn. 

Leia watches the two of them with a glimmer of amusement in her eyes. “I think I had you right from the beginning, Rey,” she says. “About you working miracles.” 

“Oh my god,” Ben mutters under his breath. 

Rey shrugs and presses herself in closer to him. “Maybe he just wasn’t as hopeless as you thought,” she says.

Leia’s eyes narrow for a split second but then she releases a long breath and inclines her head. “Perhaps you’re right,” she concedes. She gets to her feet. “Time to find that husband of mine.” As she passes, she rests a hand on Ben’s arm and Rey steps away to give them room. “You’re always welcome to come home, Ben. I hope you know that.” Then she’s gliding out of the room with one last thoughtful look at Rey. 

As soon as she’s gone, Ben deflates, sinking into one of the chairs and burying his face in his hands. “That went well,” he mutters. 

“It could have gone worse.” Rey cards her fingers through his hair, and he leans his head against her stomach, one arm winding around her waist. She smooths her hand over the curve of his neck and starts back through his hair. Her mind is just as busy as her hands, mulling over the events of the day. Ben’s parents don’t seem like tyrants, but there is a sense of distance, even when they’re in the same room. She scrapes her fingernails lightly over his scalp, a reminder that she’s here, she’s close, even if no one else is. 

Eventually, Ben lifts his head and takes Rey’s hand, dusting a kiss over her palm. “I should probably say goodbye,” he says with a slight sigh. 

“Are they leaving?” Rey asks. 

Ben shrugs. “They haven’t stayed here for years. I should find out.” 

Rey nods and reluctantly steps away. “I’m going to get my phone, and then I need to head back to my apartment. I could really use a change of clothes.” She tugs at the hem of her shirt, the same one she’d had on yesterday due to her impromptu sleepover. 

Ben smirks but it quickly fades into more of a grimace. “I guess I won’t see you until later, then.”

“But you  _ will  _ see me later,” Rey promises. 

In a flash, Ben captures her chin and holds her still while he presses a long, lingering kiss to her lips. “Not soon enough,” he whispers against them.  

By the time he releases her, Rey’s head is spinning a little. She practically floats up the stairs. When she comes back down, Ben is gone, presumably to speak to his parents, and she makes her way down the drive on her own, checking the stream of texts she’d missed out on. 

**_holy shit. holy SHIT. my parents are here_ **

**_i told them not to come until it was done i swear_ **

**_mom is here w me. idk where my dad is_ **

**_i am so sorry_ **

There are several texts from Rose as well, and a couple missed calls from Paige, all frantic to know where she is. She shoots them off a quick reassurance that she’s fine, she’ll be home soon, please don’t call the police. 

Rey has the cab ride home to figure out what she’s going to tell Rose and Paige, but she doesn’t know where to start even as they’re pulling up to the curb. She stands on the corner for a little while, head tilted back as she stares up at the apartment. Her phone buzzes again, and she glances down at it to see the small crown icon she’s come to be so familiar with. 

**_parents are staying the night. dad said to tell you good job. high praise from him tbh_ **

Rey’s thumbs move quickly.  _ wish it was me instead of them ;)  _

**_god. same_ **

Smiling to herself, Rey slips her phone inside her pocket, decision made. She’s going to tell Rose and Paige where she was last night, and they can tease her about it all they want. She’s dating a prince. She better get used to wagging tongues.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and thus we come to an ending (for now) 
> 
> not sure if i'll be able to leave these two behind forever, so we'll see what happens
> 
> thank you all so much for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to have a chat on [ tumblr~ ](https://reyofdarkness.tumblr.com/)


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